LIBRARY 

NiVKRSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


r. 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH 


SIR  WALTER   RALEIGH 

BY 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

LATELY  DISCOVERED  AMONG  HIS  UNPUBLISHED  JOURNALS 
AND  MANUSCRIPTS 

INTRODUCTION  BY 

FRANKLIN  BENJAMIN  SANBORN 

EDITED  BY 

HENRY  AIKEN  METCALF 


BOSTON  :  MDCDV 

PRINTED  EXCLUSIVELY  FOR  MEMBERS  OF 

THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
r*  A  I/TO 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


All  rights  reserved 


What  makes  a  hero  ?     An  heroic  mind 
Expressed  in  action,  in  endurance  proved : 
And  if  there  be  pre-eminence  of  right, 
Derived  through  pain  well  suffer'd,  to  the  height 
Of  rank  heroic,  'tis  to  bear  unmoved, 
Not  toil,  not  risk,  not  rage  of  sea  or  wind, 
Not  the  brute  fury  of  barbarians  blind, 
But  worse,  —  ingratitude  and  poisonous  darts 
Launched  by  the  country  he  had  served  and  loved. 
SIR  HENRY  TAYLOR,  Heroism  in  the  Shade. 


IX 


PREFACE 

THE  discovery  of  an  unpublished  essay  by 
Thoreau  on  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  is  an  event  of 
great  interest  in  the  world  of  letters,  as  being 
the  earliest  contribution  to  literature,  of  de 
cided  scholarly  value,  of  its  distinguished 
author.  The  original  manuscript  was  pur 
chased  by  Mr.  William  K.Bixby,  of  St.  Louis, 
from  Mr.  Edward  H.  Russell,  of  Worcester, 
Massachusetts,  to  whom  nearly  all  of  the 
MSS.  and  Journals  of  Thoreau  came  by  in 
heritance  ;  and  it  is  to  the  generosity  of  its 
present  owner  (Mr.  Bixby)  that  the  members 
of  The  Bibliophile  Society  are  indebted  for 
the  privilege  of  possessing  such  an  exceed 
ingly  rare  item  of  Americana. 

When  mere  fragments  of  hitherto  unpub- 
lished  compositions  of  our  foremost  Ameri 
can  writers  are  so  eagerly  sought,  it  seems 
strange  that  a  well-rounded  work  of  perhaps 

xi 


the  most  original  of  the  noteworthy  group 
of  Concord  (Massachusetts)  thinkers  should 
have  remained  unknown  for  nearly  sixty 
years.  This  is  a  veritable  treasure  wherewith 
still  further  to  enrich  the  bibliography  of  the 
publications  of  our  Society. 

It  may  be  well  here  to  remark  that  sim 
ultaneously  with  this  volume  the  Society  has 
issued  Thoreau's  journey  West,  the  entirely 
unpublished  MS.  notes  of  which  were  dis 
covered  among  the  author's  Journals,  and 
purchased  by  Mr.  Bixby  at  the  same  time  he 
acquired  the  Sir  Walter  Ralegh.  We  are 
therefore  permitted  to  bring  out,  as  com 
panion  pieces,  first  editions  of  the  first  inedited 
important  manuscript  written  by  Thoreau, 
and  also  this  narrative  of  his  Western  jour 
ney,  which  preceded  his  death  by  only  a  few 
months.  These  two  items  will  doubtless 
prove  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  lit 
erary  "finds"  of  the  season. 

We  are  fortunate,  moreover,  in  having  a 
special  Introduction  to  each  of  them  pre 
pared  by  Franklin  Benjamin  Sanborn,  the 
greatest  living  authority  on  Thoreau,  of  whom 
he  was  a  life-long  friend  and  neighbor. 

xii 


There  are  three  drafts  of  the  manuscript 
of  Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  each  one  differing  in 
certain  respects  from  the  other  two,  and 
all  of  which  have  been  used  in  the  prepa 
ration  of  this  volume.  The  third,  and  final, 
draft,  in  its  careful  elaboration,  and  the 
skilful  weaving  together  of  its  parts,  is  a  dis 
tinct  improvement  over  the  first ;  and  there 
are  some  indications,  even  in  this  last  draft, 
that  the  author  may  have  had  a  still  further 
revision  in  contemplation. 

We  are  so  wont  only  to  associate  Thoreau 
with  his  own  immediate  world  of  Nature, 
that  a  work  like  this  in  which  he  ventures 
so  far  afield,  and  in  which  he  deals  with  so 
much  Jthat  is  stirring,  presents  him  to  us  in 
an  entirely  new  light.  Perhaps,  at  first,  we 
may  wonder  what  there  was  in  common 
between  the  retiring,  home-loving  citizen 
of  Concord,  and  this  adventurous  knight  of 
"the  spacious  days  of  great  Elizabeth," 
which  should  make  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  his 
favorite  character  in  English  history.  But 
we  have  only  to  study  the  career  of  this  sturdy 
Devonshire  worthy  to  come  under  the  spell 
of  his  enduring  charm  and  real  manliness;  to 

xiii 


admire  the  unswerving  loyalty  with  which 
he  ever  served  his  country ;  and  to  feel,  with 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  that  "  God  has  made 
nobler  heroes,  but  He  never  made  a  finer  gen 
tleman  than  Walter  Ralegh." 

To  every  patriotic  American  this  heroic 
figure  should  appeal  with  a  special  enthu 
siasm,  since,  as  Charles  Kingsley  has  said, — 
"  To  this  one  man,  under  the  Providence 
of  Almighty  God,  the  whole  United  States  of 
America  owe  their  existence." 

HENRY  AIKEN  METCALF 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 

BY 

FRANKLIN  BENJAMIN  SANBORN 

THE  finding  of  a  sketch  of  Sir  Walter 
Ralegh  (as  he  usually  spelt  his  own  name) 
among  the  manuscripts  of  Thoreau  will  be 
a  surprise  to  most  readers.  But  the  sub 
ject  lay  along  the  lines  of  his  earlier  read 
ings  after  leaving  Harvard  College,  and  the 
sketch,  though  not  so  early  among  his  writ 
ings  as  The  Service,  edited  by  me  in  1902, 
and  those  parts  of  The  Week  that  first  came 
out  in  The  Dial  (1840-44),  belongs  in  that 
active  and  militant  period  of  his  life.  It 
was  probably  prepared  for  publication  in  The 
Dial,  and  would  have  been  published  there, 
had  not  fate  and  the  lack  of  paying  sub 
scribers  abruptly  stopped  that  quarterly  in 
the  summer  of  1 844. 

The  readings  from   Ralegh's   History  of 
the  World  began  about  1842,  as  we  see  by 


the  earlier  "Journals,  and  the  handwriting 
and  some  other  circumstances  about  the 
three  drafts  of  the  sketch  fix  the  date  as 
not  later  than  1844.  His  poetical  scrap- 
book,  into  which  he  copied  most  of  those 
verses  of  Ralegh's  and  Ben  Jonson  s  time 
that  appear  in  The  Week,  along  with  many 
others,  and  which  Ellery  Channing  had 
before  him  in  writing  his  Thoreau  the  Poet- 
Naturalist,  opens  with  three  pages  copied 
from  the  works  of  Ralegh,  and  contains 
in  its  pages,  130-142,  the  poetic  pieces 
ascribed  to  Ralegh  in  this  sketch.  It  was 
this  commonplace  book  that  Thoreau  used 
in  preparing  his  Week  for  the  press  in 
1848-49,  and  nothing  appears  there  of 
later  date.  The  last  extracts  therein  which 
can  be  certainly  dated  are  from  the 
Massachusetts  Quarterly  Review  of  Septem 
ber,  1848,  on  Hindoo  Philosophy.  The 
paging  of  the  book  in  pencil  is  later,  and  so 
is  a  list  of  pages  which  shows  what  therein 
Thoreau  had  used  in  his  papers  for  print 
ing.  The  long  passages  about  Alexander 
and  Epaminondas  are  in  the  scrap-book  at 
pages  236-7;  and  that  fine  passage  about 


the  starry  influences  stands  in  the  scrap- 
book  on  page  235,  and  in  the  list  of  used 
pages  is  crossed  out.  The  poem  of  Du 
Bartas  quoted  afterwards  does  not  seem  to 
be  in  the  scrap-book. 

Of  course,  since  Thoreau  wrote  on  Ralegh, 
now  more  than  sixty  years,  much  has  been 
learned  and  printed  concerning  his  problem 
atical  career,  which  still  remains  in  some 
points  doubtful,  —  in  none  more  so,  per 
haps,  than  in  the  true  authorship  of  the 
poems  ascribed  to  him  by  his  contempo 
raries,  and  long  after  by  Bishop  Percy. 

Thoreau  seems  to  have  been  guided  in 
his  judgment  of  Ralegh  as  the  real  author 
of  disputed  poems,  by  his  inner  conscious 
ness  of  what  the  knightly  courtier  ought  to 
have  written.  Nor  did  he  live  long  enough 
to  see  the  fragments  of  an  undoubted  poem  by 
Ralegh,  The  Continuation  of  Cynthia,  which 
was  found  after  Thoreau's  death  among  the 
numerous  papers  of  the  Cecils  at  Hatfield 
House.  In  its  form  it  is  the  poorest  of  all 
the  verses  ascribed  to  Ralegh  ;  yet  it  has  good 
lines,  and  a  general  air  of  magnanimous  re 
gret.  It  is  a  fragment  in  the  unmistakable 

[3] 


handwriting  of  Ralegh,  with  all  his  pecul 
iarities  of  spelling,  such  as  "  soon  "  for  sun, 
"  yearth  "  for  earth,  "  sythes  "  for  sighs,  and 
"  perrellike  "  for  pearl-like.  The  Cynthia 
of  which  it  is  a  continuation  is  irrecover 
ably  lost,  but  was  mentioned  by  Spenser  in 
his  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  as  early 
as  1593,  where  he  calls  Ralegh  "the  Shep- 
heard  of  the  Ocean/'  and  says,  — 

His  song  was  all  a  lamentable  lay 

Of  great  unkindness  and  of  usage  hard, 

Of  Cynthia,  the  Lady  of  the  Sea, 

Which  from  her  presence  faultless  him  debarred. 

That,  of  course,  must  have  been  written 
some  time  after  1592;  the  continuation  is  be 
lieved  by  Archdeacon  Hannah  to  have  been 
written  soon  after  the  death  of  Elizabeth 
(his  Cynthia)  and  during  his  own  early 
imprisonment  in  the  Tower.  Thoreau's 
favorite  among  Ralegh's  poems  was  The 
Lie,  or  as  he  preferred  to  call  it,  The  Soul's 
Errand,  which  was  long  disputed  as  Ralegh's, 
but  is  now  certainly  known  to  be  his,  by 
the  direct  testimony  of  two  contemporary 
manuscripts,  "and  the  still  stronger  evi 
dence,"  says  Hannah,  "  of  at  least  two 

[4] 


contemporary  answers,  written  during  his 
lifetime,  and  reproaching  him  with  the 
poem,  by  name  or  implication."  Thoreau 
had  at  first  taken  it  for  Ralegh's  without 
doubt ;  then  found,  in  a  newspaper  of  1843, 
a  version  of  it  ascribed  to  Joshua  Sylvester, 
the  translator  of  Du  Bartas,  which  led  him 
to  doubt  its  being  Ralegh's,  and  to  alter  his 
version  of  the  text.  This  later  version  he 
read  at  the  Concord  funeral  of  John  Brown 
(December  2,  1859),  prefacing  it  with  these 
words :  "  The  well-known  verses  called  The 
Soul's  Errand,  supposed  by  some  to  have 
been  written  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  when 
he  was  expecting  to  be  executed  on  the 
following  day,  are  at  least  worthy  of  such 
an  origin,  and  are  equally  applicable  to  the 
present  case.  Hear  them/' — and  he  pro 
ceeded  to  read  them  in  my  hearing.  But 
on  a  blank  page  in  the  scrap-book  he  wrote 
in  pencil,"  Assigned  to  Raleigh  by  Percy,  as 
written  the  night  before  his  execution.  But 
it  appeared  in  Poetical  Rhapsody  in  1608, 
yet,  as  Davison  says,  may  have  been  written 
the  night  before  he  expected  to  have  been 
executed  in  1603.  It  is  found  among  Syl- 


vester's  Poems,  and  by  Ritson  given  to  Davi- 
son.  It  also  occurs  in  Lord  Pembroke's 
Poems,  and  exists  in  two  copies  in  the 
Harleian  MSS." 

To  this  comment,  written  in  1843-44, 
Archdeacon  Hannah  added  in  1870,  "It 
can  be  found  in  MSS.  more  than  ten  years 
earlier  than  1608, — in  1596/1595,  or  1593. 
There  are  five  other  claimants,  but  not  one 
with  a  case  that  will  bear  the  slightest  exami 
nation.  For  the  claim  of  Richard  Edwards 
we  are  indebted  to  a  mere  mistake  of  Ellis's; 
for  that  of  F.  Davison  to  a  freak  of  Ritson's; 
that  of  Lord  Essex  is  only  known  from  the 
correspondence  of  Percy,  who  did  not  be 
lieve  it;  and  those  of  Sylvester  and  Lord 
Pembroke  are  sufficiently  refuted  by  the  mu 
tilated  character  of  the  copies  which  were 
printed  among  their  posthumous  writings." 

Thoreau  evidently  had  his  faith  in 
Ralegh's  authorship  shaken  by  the  attribu 
tion  to  Sylvester  in  1843,  anc^  tne  printing 
then  of  the  extended  (rather  than  mutilated) 
copy  as  found  in  Sylvester,  which  he  pro 
ceeded  to  compare  with  his  earlier  copy. 
As  a  result,  the  verses  read  by  him  at  the 

[6] 


Brown  funeral  were  amended  from  the  Syl 
vester  copy.  Hannah  has  a  theory  worth 
citing:  "We  find  grounds  for  supposing 
that  Ralegh  marked  each  crisis  of  his  his 
tory  by  writing  some  short  poem,  in  which 
the  vanity  of  life  is  proclaimed,  under  an 
aspect  suited  to  his  circumstances  and  age. 
His  first  slight  check  occurred  in  1589, 
when  he  went  to  visit  Spenser  in  Ireland ; 
and  more  seriously  a  little  later,  when  his 
secret  marriage  sent  him  to  the  Tower. 
The  Lie,  with  its  proud,  indignant  brevity, 
would  then  exactly  express  his  angry  temper. 
The  Pilgrimage  belongs  more  naturally  to  a 
time  when  he  was  smarting  under  the  rude 
ness  of  the  king's  attorney  at  his  trial  in 
1603.  The  few  lines,  Even  such  is  Time, 
mark  the  calm  reality  of  the  now  certain 
doom ;  they  express  the  thoughts  appropri 
ate  for  the  night  now  known  to  be  indeed 
the  last,  when  no  room  remained  for  bitter 
ness  or  anger,  in  the  contemplation  of  im 
mediate  and  inevitable  death." 

I  may  observe  that  Thoreau  adds  a  little 
to  the  tale  of  the  occasion  of  these  lines 
in  the  scrap-book  where  he  copies  them. 

[7] 


He  writes,  "  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  the  night 
before  his  death."  (In  some  copies  thus 
entitled :  "  Verses  said  to  have  been  found 
in  his  Bible  in  the  Gatehouse  at  West 
minster  ;."  Archbishop  Sancroft,  who  has 
transcribed  the  lines,  calls  them  his  "  Epitaph 
made  by  himself,  and  given  to  me  of  him, 
the  night  before  his  suffering.") 

The  Silent  Lover  is  thought  to  have  been 
sent  to  Elizabeth  ;  the  Walsingham  verses, 
which  Thoreau  thought  characteristic  of 
Ralegh,  do  not  seem  so  to  me,  and  Hannah 
says,  "  I  think  it  very  improbable  that  Ralegh 
wrote  this  ballad."  It  sounds  more  like 
Campion. 

As  in  that  chapter  of  The  Service  which 
he  has  called  The  Soldier,  so  in  this  essay 
Thoreau  shows  a  decided  taste  for  war  as 
against  an  inglorious  state  of  peace,  and  sees 
little  harm  in  the  constant  ardor  of  his  hero 
for  a  fight  against  Irish  kernes,  Spanish  war 
ships,  and  the  armies  of  Austria  and  Spain, 
against  which  he  had  contended  from  his 
warlike  youth,  when  he  absented  himself 
from  the  university  to  learn  the  art  of  war. 
Although  less  inclined,  as  he  grew  older,  to 

[8] 


use  the  language  of  campaigns  and  battle 
fields,  Thoreau  never  quite  gave  up  this 
belligerent  attitude.  He  was  pugnacious, 
and  rather  annoyed  by  those  ostentatious 
preachers  of  international  peace  who  mixed 
themselves  in  with  the  anti-slavery  and 
temperance  reformers  of  his  period.  One 
such,  Henry  C.  Wright,  an  aggressive  non- 
resistant,  was  specially  satirized  by  him  in 
his  Journal  for  June  17,  1853,  —  ^e  anni~ 
versary  of  Bunker  Hill  battle,  and  perhaps 
chosen  on  that  account  to  make  a  demon 
stration  against  war  in  Concord,  whose 
chief  reputation  had  once  been  that  it 
opened  the  war  of  the  Revolution.  It  may 
be  mentioned,  parenthetically,  in  passing, 
that  Thoreau's  grandmother,  Mary  Jones 
of  Weston,  daughter  of  the  Tory  Colonel 
Jones  of  the  Provincial  militia,  on  the  day 
of  Bunker  Hill  in  1775  came  over  from 
Weston  to  Concord  to  carry  a  basket  of 
cherries  and  other  good  things  to  a  Tory 
brother  immured  in  Concord  Jail  for  bring 
ing  in  supplies  from  Halifax  to  the  British 
troops  besieged  in  Boston.  She  was  but  a 
girl,  but  she  soon  married  Rev.  Asa  Dunbar, 

[9] 


who  also  was  inclined  to  be  a  Tory,  and  did 
not  join  the  patriots  until  he  went  to  reside 
in  Keene,  N.  H.,  as  a  lawyer,  giving  up  his 
clerical  profession,  since  there  were  few 
parishes  that  would  tolerate  a  minister  who 
was  not  a  sincere  patriot.  Of  the  Jones 
family  some  were  Tories  and  some  patriots, 
the  rest,  among  them  Mrs.  Dunbar,  were 
neutral.  On  the  contrary,  Thoreau's  grand 
father  on  the  other  side  was  in  the  Revolu 
tionary  service  as  a  privateer. 

For  whatever  reason,  this  particular  peace 
advocate  was  not  attractive  to  Thoreau,  who 
thus  spoke  of  him  in  his  "Journal,  as  was  first 
noted  by  Channing  in  his  Life  of  Thoreau ; 
"  They  addressed  each  other  constantly  by 
their  Christian  names,  and  rubbed  you  con 
tinually  with  the  greasy  cheek  of  their 
kindness.  I  was  awfully  pestered  with  the 
benignity  of  one  of  them.  .  .  .  He  wrote 
a  book  called  A  Kiss  for  a  B/ow,  and  he  be 
haved  as  if  I  had  given  him  a  blow, — was 
bent  on  giving  me  the  kiss,  —  when  there 
was  neither  quarrel  nor  agreement  between 
us.  ...  He  addressed  me  as  '  Henry ' 
within  one  minute  from  the  time  I  first  laid 

[10] 


eyes  on  him ;  and  when  I  spoke  he  said, 
with  drawling,  sultry  sympathy,  'Henry,  I 
know  all  you  would  say,  I  understand  you 
perfectly,  —  you  need  not  explain  anything 
to  me.'  He  could  tell  in  a  dark  room,  with 
his  eyes  blinded,  and  in  perfect  stillness,  if 
there  was  one  there  whom  he  loved.  .  .  . 
What  a  relief  to  have  heard  the  ring  of  one 
healthy,  reserved  tone."  This  satirical  tone 
is  seldom  found  in  the  essay  on  Ralegh, 
which,  like  most  of  the  essays  and  verses 
before  1845  are  m  a  sei"i°us  and  often  para 
doxical  spirit,  suggesting  laughter  only  by 
their  extravagance,  which  the  young  author 
did  not  seem  to  perceive. 

The  tone  of  The  Service  was  probably  sug 
gested  by  those  numerous  discourses  on  peace 
and  non-resistance  to  which  he  was  obliged 
to  listen  from  1840  to  1848,  and  which  he 
resented  then,  as  he  also  did  in  1859  when 
writing  with  some  heat  on  the  capture  and 
martyrdom  of  John  Brown,  which  he  com 
pared  to  that  of  Ralegh.  "  I  speak  for  the 
slave,"  he  said,  "when  I  say  that  I  prefer 
the  philanthropy  of  Captain  Brown  to  that 
philanthropy  which  neither  shoots  me  nor 


liberates  me.  For  once  the  Sharp  rifles 
and  the  revolvers  were  employed  in  a  right 
eous  cause.  I  do  not  wish  to  kill  nor  to 
be  killed,  but  I  can  foresee  circumstances  in 
which  both  these  things  would  be  by  me 
unavoidable."  He  listened  with  much  in 
terest  to  Brown's  account  of  his  fights  in 
Kansas,  when  I  had  introduced  him  to  Brown 
in  his  father's  house  at  Concord,  in  Feb 
ruary,  1857,  anc^  noted  down  many  of  their 
particulars ;  and  when  the  Civil  War  came 
on,  he  was  as  earnest  as  any  one  that  it  should 
be  fought  to  its  just  conclusion,  the  destruc 
tion  of  slavery.  In  this  he  was  unlike  his 
English  friend  Thomas  Cholmondeley,  who 
wrote  to  him  from  Shrewsbury,  April  23, 
1 86 1  :  "These  rumors  of  wars  make  me 
wish  that  we  had  got  done  with  this  brutal 
stupidity  of  war  altogether ;  and  I  believe, 
Thoreau,  that  the  human  race  will  at  last 
get  rid  of  it,  though,  perhaps,  not  in  a 
creditable  way ;  but  such  powers  will  be 
brought  to  bear  that  it  will  become  mon 
strous  even  to  the  French.  Dundonald  de 
clared  to  the  last  that  he  possessed  secrets 
which,  from  their  tremendous  character, 


would  make  war  impossible.  So  peace  may 
be  begotten  from  the  machinations  of  evil." 
Lord  Dundonald,  who  had  fought  by  sea 
for  the  South  Americans  and  the  Greeks, 
was  a  good  sample  of  a  modern  Ralegh ; 
but  he  would  not  have  aroused  in  Thoreau 
the  interest  which  he  had  felt  in  Ralegh. 
It  was  the  literary  as  well  as  the  knightly 
quality  in  the  Elizabethan  that  attracted  the 
Concord  man  of  letters ;  and  the  burden 
of  this  long-lost  essay  will  be  found  to  be 
chiefly  literary.  Ralegh,  like  his  friends, 
Sidney  and  Spenser,  is  one  of  the  romantic 
figures  in  English  literature  more  admired 
than  read  in  these  later  days ;  they  are  in 
dispensable  to  him  who  would  know  all  the 
resources  of  poesy  in  our  native  tongue.  I 
was  therefore  surprised  and  rather  grieved 
to  hear  Dr.  Holmes  say,  as  we  were  re 
turning  together  to  Boston  from  the  break 
fast  given  to  Mrs.  Stowe  at  Newton,  many 
years  since,  that  he  had  never  read  the  verses 
ascribed  to  Ralegh.  Nobody  now  reads  the 
History  of  the  World,  —  probably  Thoreau 
was  its  latest  American  reader,  except  those 
whom  some  historical  task  required  them  to 

[13] 


go  through  with  it.  He  was  also  the  last 
reader  of  Davenant's  Gondibert,  upon  which 
many  an  adventurous  youth  has  been  stranded. 
But  Thoreau,  like  Emerson  and  Charles 
Lamb,  whose  researches  in  Elizabethan  fields 
aided  him,  and  are  acknowledged  in  his  com 
monplace  book,  from  1839  until  1845  made 
a  faithful  study  of  that  copious  and  racy 
literature  that  filled  the  century  from  Surrey 
and  Wyatt  to  Crashaw  and  Vaughan,  and 
in  this  scrap-book  before  me  more  than 
forty  authors  of  that  period  are  quoted, 
some  of  them  at  much  length.  The  edit 
ors  of  Thoreau's  dozen  volumes  should  have 
had  this  scrap-book  before  them  when  seek 
ing  the  source  of  the  quotations  in  which  he 
so  abounds. 

Let  us  not  seek  to  overvalue  this  treasure- 
trove  of  an  author  to  whom  each  successive 
year  brings  a  new  army  of  readers,  and 
of  whom  every  reader  becomes  a  warm  ad 
mirer.  It  is  not  a  finished  piece  of  English 
like  many  of  his  essays  ;  he  had  not  in  1 844 
reached  that  perfection  in  his  style,  nor 
that  ripeness  of  thought  which  Walden 
and  the  later  writings  display.  It  belongs, 


rather,  with  that  collection  of  literary  essays 
with  which  the  bulk  of  his  narrative  of  The 
Week  is  so  increased,  and  its  qualities  so 
much  enriched.  But  it  shows  how  early 
his  profound  conceptions  got  a  striking 
expression,  and  how  even  earlier  his  far- 
reaching  judgments  on  men  and  things  en 
titled  him  to  the  name  of  scholar  and  sage. 
Few  youths  of  New  England  ever  ex 
hibited  sooner  in  life,  or  practised  more 
seriously  and  effectively,  the  arts  and  gifts 
that  produce  works  of  permanent  literary 
value.  Such  is  every  completed  essay  of 
Thoreau  that  I  have  seen ;  and  I  must 
now  have  seen  them  nearly  all.  The  rev 
elations  of  his  unprinted  Journals  are  now 
to  be  tested,  upon  their  publication ;  but 
they  will  not  decrease  or  check  his  growing 
fame. 


SIR    WALTER    RALEIGH 

PERHAPS  no  one  in  English  history  better 
represents  the  heroic  character  than  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  for  Sidney  has  got  to  be 
almost  as  shadowy  as  Arthur  himself.  Ra 
leigh's  somewhat  antique  and  Roman  vir 
tues  appear  in  his  numerous  military  and 
naval  adventures,  in  his  knightly  conduct 
toward  the  Queen,  in  his  poems  and  his 
employments  in  the  Tower,  and  not  least 
in  his  death,  but  more  than  all  in  his  con 
stant  soldier-like  bearing  and  promise.  He 
was  the  Bayard  of  peaceful  as  well  as  war 
like  enterprise,  and  few  lives  which  are  the 
subject  of  recent  and  trustworthy  history 
are  so  agreeable  to  the  imagination.  Not 
withstanding  his  temporary  unpopularity,  he 
especially  possessed  the  prevalent  and  popu 
lar  qualities  which  command  the  admira 
tion  of  men.  If  an  English  Plutarch  were 
to  be  written,  Raleigh  would  be  the  best 
Greek  or  Roman  among  them  all.  He  was 


one  whose  virtues  if  they  were  not  distinct 
ively  great  yet  gave  to  virtues  a  current  stamp 
and  value  as  it  were  by  the  very  grace  and 
loftiness  with  which  he  carried  them ;  —  one 
of  nature's  noblemen  who  possessed  those 
requisites  to  true  nobility  without  which  no 
heraldry  nor  blood  can  avail.  Among  sav 
ages  he  would  still  have  been  chief.  He 
seems  to  have  had,  not  a  profounder  or 
grander  but,  so  to  speak,  more  nature  than 
other  men, — a  great,  irregular,  luxuriant  na 
ture,  fit  to  be  the  darling  of  a  people.  The 
enthusiastic  and  often  extravagant,  but  always 
hearty  and  emphatic,  tone  in  which  he  is 
spoken  of  by  his  contemporaries  is  not  the 
least  remarkable  fact  about  him,  and  it  does 
not  matter  much  whether  the  current  stories 
are  true  or  not,  since  they  at  least  prove  his 
reputation.  It  is  not  his  praise  to  have 
been  a  saint  or  a  seer  in  his  generation,  but 
"one  of  the  gallantest  worthies  that  ever 
England  bred."  The  stories  about  him 
testify  to  a  character  rather  than  a  virtue. 
As,  for  instance,  that  "  he  was  damnable 
proud.  Old  Sir  Robert  Harley  of  Bramp- 
ton-Brian  Castle  (who  knew  him)  would 
[18] 


say,  'twas  a  great  question,  who  was  the 
proudest,  Sir  Walter  or  Sir  Thomas  Over- 
bury,  but  the  difference  that  was,  was  judged 
on  Sir  Thomas's  side ; "  that  "  in  his  youth 
his  companions  were  boisterous  blades,  but 
generally  those  that  had  wit ; "  that  on 
one  occasion  he  beats  one  of  them  for  mak 
ing  a  noise  in  a  tavern,  and  "seals  up  his 
mouth,  his  upper  and  nether  beard,  with 
hard  wax."  A  young  contemporary  says, 
"I  have  heard  his  enemies  confess  that  he 
was  one  of  the  weightiest  and  wisest  men 
that  the  island  ever  bred; "  and  another  gives 
this  character  of  him,  — "  who  hath  not 
known  or  read  of  this  prodigy  of  wit  and 
fortune,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  a  man  unfortu 
nate  in  nothing  else  but  in  the  greatness  of 
his  wit  and  advancement,  whose  eminent 
worth  was  such,  both  in  domestic  policy, 
foreign  expeditions,  and  discoveries,  in  arts 
and  literature,  both  practic  and  contempla 
tive,  that  it  might  seem  at  once  to  conquer 
example  and  imitation." 

And  what  we  are  told  of  his  personal  ap 
pearance  is  accordant  with  the  rest,  —  that 
"  he  had  in  the  outward  man  a  good  presence, 


in  a  handsome  and  well-compacted  person;" 
that  "he  was  a  tall,  handsome,  and  bold 
man ; "  and  his  "was  thought  a  very  good 
face/'  though  "  his  countenance  was  some 
what  spoiled  by  the  unusual  height  of  his 
forehead."  "  He  was  such  a  person  (every 
way),  that  (as  King  Charles  I  says  of  the  Lord 
Strafford)  a  prince  would  rather  be  afraid  of, 
than  ashamed  of,"  and  had  an  "awfulness  and 
ascendency  in  his  aspect  over  other  mortals;" 
and  we  are  not  disappointed  to  learn  that  he 
indulged  in  a  splendid  dress,  and  "  notwith 
standing  his  so  great  mastership  in  style,  and 
his  conversation  with  the  learnedest  and  polit 
est  persons,  yet  he  spake  broad  Devonshire 
to  his  dying  day."  1 

Such  a  character  as  this  was  well  suited  to 
the  time  in  which  he  lived.  His  age  was  an 
unusually  stirring  one.  The  discovery  of 
America  and  the  successful  progress  of  the 
Reformation  opened  a  field  for  both  the  intel 
lectual  and  physical  energies  of  his  generation. 
The  fathers  of  his  age  were  Calvin  and  Knox, 
and  Cranmer,  and  Pizarro,  and  Garcilaso ; 
and  its  immediate  forefathers  were  Luther 

1  All  the  notes  are  in  the  back  of  the  volume. 


and  Raphael,  and  Bayard  and  Angelo,  and 
Ariosto,  and  Copernicus,  and  Machiavel,  and 
Erasmus,  and  Cabot,  and  Ximenes,  and  Co 
lumbus.  Its  device  might  have  been  an  an 
chor,  a  sword,  and  a  quill.  The  Pizarro  laid 
by  his  sword  at  intervals  and  took  to  his  let 
ters.  The  Columbus  set  sail  for  newer  worlds 
still,  by  voyages  which  needed  not  the  pat 
ronage  of  princes.  The  Bayard  alighted  from 
his  steed  to  seek  adventures  no  less  arduous 
than  heretofore  upon  the  ocean  and  in  the 
Western  world ;  and  the  Luther  who  had  re 
formed  religion  began  now  to  reform  politics 
and  science. 

In  Raleigh's  youth,  however  it  may  have 
concerned  him,  Camoens  was  writing  a 
heroic  poem  in  Portugal,  and  the  arts  still 
had  their  representative  in  Paul  Veronese  of 
Italy.  He  may  have  been  one  to  welcome 
the  works  of  Tasso  and  Montaigne  to  Eng 
land,  and  when  he  looked  about  him  he 
might  have  found  such  men  as  Cervantes 
and  Sidney,  men  of  like  pursuits  and  not 
altogether  dissimilar  genius  from  himself, 
for  his  contemporaries,  —  a  Drake  to  rival 
him  on  the  sea,  and  a  Hudson  in  western 

[21] 


adventure ;  a  Halley,  a  Galileo,  and  a  Kep 
ler,  for  his  astronomers;  a  Bacon,  a  Beh- 
men,  and  a  Burton,  for  his  philosophers; 
and  a  Jonson,  a  Spenser,  and  a  Shakespeare, 
his  poets  for  refreshment  and  inspiration. 

But  that  we  may  know  how  worthy  he 
himself  was  to  make  one  of  this  illustrious 
company,  and  may  appreciate  the  great  activ 
ity  and  versatility  of  his  genius,  we  will  glance 
hastily  at  the  various  aspects  of  his  life. 

He  was  a  proper  knight,  a  born  cavalier, 
who  in  the  intervals  of  war  betook  himself 
still  to  the  most  vigorous  arts  of  peace, 
though  as  if  diverted  from  his  proper  aim. 
He  makes  us  doubt  if  there  is  not  some 
worthier  apology  for  war  than  has  been  dis 
covered,  for  its  modes  and  manners  were  an 
instinct  with  him ;  and  though  in  his  writ 
ings  he  takes  frequent  occasion  sincerely  to 
condemn  its  folly,  and  show  the  better  policy 
and  advantage  of  peace,  yet  he  speaks  with 
the  uncertain  authority  of  a  warrior  still,  to 
whom  those  juster  wars  are  not  simply  the 
dire  necessity  he  would  imply. 

In  whatever  he  is  engaged  we  seem  to  see 
a  plume  waving  over  his  head,  and  a  sword 


dangling  at  his  side.  Born  in  1552,  the  last 
year  of  the  reign  of  Edward  VI,  we  find 
that  not  long  after,  by  such  instinct  as  makes 
the  young  crab  seek  the  seashore,  he  has 
already  marched  into  France,  as  one  of  "  a 
troop  of  a  hundred  gentlemen  volunteers," 
who  are  described  as  "  a  gallant  company, 
nobly  mounted  and  accoutred,  having  on 
their  colors  the  motto,  Finem  det  mlhi  virtus 
— '  Let  valor  be  my  aim/  '  And  so  in  fact 
he  marched  on  through  life  with  this  motto 
in  his  heart  always.  All  the  peace  of  those 
days  seems  to  have  been  but  a  truce,  or 
casual  interruption  of  the  order  of  war. 
War  with  Spain,  especially,  was  so  much  the 
rule  rather  than  the  exception  that  the  navi 
gators  and  commanders  of  these  two  nations, 
when  abroad,  acted  on  the  presumption  that 
their  countries  were  at  war  at  home,  though 
they  had  left  them  at  peace;  and  their  re 
spective  colonies  in  America  carried  on  war 
at  their  convenience,  with  no  infraction  of 
the  treaties  between  the  mother  countries. 

Raleigh  seems  to  have  regarded  the  Span 
iards  as  his  natural  enemies,  and  he  was 
not  backward  to  develop  this  part  of  his 

[23] 


nature.  When  England  was  threatened  with 
foreign  invasion,  the  Queen  looked  to  him 
especially  for  advice  and  assistance;  and 
none  was  better  able  to  give  them  than  he. 
We  cannot  but  admire  the  tone  in  which  he 
speaks  of  his  island,  and  how  it  is  to  be  best 
defended,  and  the  navy,  its  chief  strength, 
maintained  and  improved.  He  speaks  from 
England  as  his  castle,  and  his  (as  no  other 
man's)  is  the  voice  of  the  state  ;  for  he  does 
not  assert  the  interests  of  an  individual  but 
of  a  commonwealth,  and  we  see  in  him  re 
vived  a  Roman  patriotism. 

His  actions,  as  they  were  public  and  for 
the  public,  were  fit  to  be  publicly  rewarded ; 
and  we  accordingly  read  with  equanimity 
of  gold  chains  and  monopolies  and  other 
emoluments  conferred  on  him  from  time  to 
time  for  his  various  services,  —  his  military 
successes  in  Ireland,  "  that  commonweal  of 
common  woe,"  as  he  even  then  described 
it ;  his  enterprise  in  the  harbor  of  Cadiz ; 
his  capture  of  Fayal  from  the  Spaniards ; 
and  other  exploits  which  perhaps,  more 
than  anything  else,  got  him  fame  and  a 
name  during  his  lifetime. 


If  war  was  his  earnest  work,  it  was  his 
pastime  too;  for  in  the  peaceful  intervals  we 
hear  of  him  participating  heartily  and  bear 
ing  off  the  palm  in  the  birthday  tourna 
ments  and  tilting  matches  of  the  Queen, 
where  the  combatants  vied  with  each  other 
mainly  who  should  come  on  to  the  ground 
in  the  most  splendid  dress  and  equipments. 
In  those  tilts  it  is  said  that  his  political  rival, 
Essex,  whose  wealth  enabled  him  to  lead 
the  costliest  train,  but  who  ran  very  ill  and 
was  thought  the  poorest  knight  of  all,  was 
wont  to  change  his  suit  from  orange  to 
green,  that  it  might  be  said  that  "  There 
was  one  in  green  who  ran  worse  than  one 
in  orange." 

None  of  the  worthies  of  that  age  can  be 
duly  appreciated  if  we  neglect  to  consider 
them  in  their  relation  to  the  New  World. 
The  stirring  spirits  stood  with  but  one  foot 
on  the  land.  There  were  Drake,  Hawkins, 
Hudson,  Frobisher,  and  many  others,  and 
their  worthy  companion  was  Raleigh.  As 
a  navigator  and  naval  commander  he  had 
few  equals,  and  if  the  reader  who  has  at 
tended  to  his  other  actions  inquires  how  he 


filled  up  the  odd  years,  he  will  find  that  they 
were  spent  in  numerous  voyages  to  America 
for  the  purposes  of  discovery  and  coloniza 
tion.  He  would  be  more  famous  for  these 
enterprises  if  they  were  not  overshadowed  by 
the  number  and  variety  of  his  pursuits. 

His  persevering  care  and  oversight  as  the 
patron  of  Virginia,  discovered  and  planted 
under  his  auspices  in  1584,  present  him  in 
an  interesting  light  to  the  American  reader. 
The  work  of  colonization  was  well  suited  to 
his  genius ;  and  if  the  necessity  of  England 
herself  had  not  required  his  attention  and 
presence  at  this  time,  he  would  possibly 
have  realized  some  of  his  dreams  in  planta 
tions  and  cities  on  our  coast. 

England  has  since  felt  the  benefit  of  his 
experience  in  naval  affairs ;  for  he  was  one 
of  the  first  to  assert  their  importance  to 
her,  and  he  exerted  himself  especially  for  the 
improvement  of  naval  architecture,  on  which 
he  has  left  a  treatise.  He  also  composed  a 
discourse  on  the  art  of  war  at  sea,  a  sub 
ject  which  at  that  time  had  never  been 
treated. 

We  can  least  bear  to  consider  Raleigh  as 


a  courtier  ;  though  the  court  of  England 
at  that  time  was  a  field  not  altogether  un 
worthy  of  such  a  courtier.  His  competitors 
for  fame  and  favor  there  were  Burleigh, 
Leicester,  Sussex,  Buckingham,  and,  be  it 
remembered,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  whose  Ar 
cadia  was  just  finished  when  Raleigh  came 
to  court.  Sidney  was  his  natural  com 
panion  and  other  self,  as  it  were,  as  if 
nature,  in  her  anxiety  to  confer  one  speci 
men  of  a  true  knight  and  courtier  on  that 
age,  had  cast  two  in  the  same  mould,  lest 
one  should  miscarry.  These  two  kindred 
spirits  are  said  to  have  been  mutually  at 
tracted  toward  each  other.  And  there,  too, 
was  Queen  Elizabeth  herself,  the  centre  of 
the  court  and  of  the  kingdom ;  to  whose 
service  he  consecrates  himself,  not  so  much 
as  a  subject  to  his  sovereign,  but  as  a  knight 
to  the  service  of  his  mistress.  His  inter 
course  with  the  Queen  may  well  have  begun 
with  the  incident  of  the  cloak,  for  such 
continued  to  be  its  character  afterward.  It 
has  in  the  description  an  air  of  romance, 
and  might  fitly  have  made  a  part  of  his 
friend  Sidney's  Arcadia.  The  tale  runs  that 

[a?] 


the  Queen,  walking  one  day  in  the  midst 
of  her  courtiers,  came  to  a  miry  place,  when 
Raleigh,  who  was  then  unknown  to  her, 
taking  off  his  rich  plush  cloak,  spread  it 
upon  the  ground  for  a  foot-cloth. 

We  are  inclined  to  consider  him  as  some 
knight,  and  a  knight  errant,  too,  who  had 
strayed  into  the  precincts  of  the  court,  and 
practised  there  the  arts  which  he  had  learned 
in  bower  and  hall  and  in  the  lists.  Not 
but  that  he  knew  how  to  govern  states  as 
well  as  queens,  but  he  brought  to  the  task 
the  gallantry  and  graces  of  chivalry,  as  well 
as  the  judgment  and  experience  of  a  practical 
modern  Englishman.  "  The  Queen,"  says 
one,  "  began  to  be  taken  with  his  elocution, 
and  loved  to  hear  his  reasons  to  his  demands  ; 
and  the  truth  is  she  took  him  for  a  kind  of 
oracle,  which  nettled  them  all."  He  rose 
rapidly  in  her  favor,  and  became  her  indis 
pensable  counsellor  in  all  matters  which 
concerned  the  state,  for  he  was  minutely 
acquainted  with  the  affairs  of  England,  and 
none  better  understood  her  commercial  in 
terests.  But  notwithstanding  the  advantage 
of  his  wisdom  to  England,  we  had  rather 

[28] 


think  of  him  taking  counsel  with  the  winds 
and  breakers  of  the  American  coast  and 
the  roar  of  the  Spanish  artillery,  than  with 
the  Queen.  But  though  he  made  a  good 
use  of  his  influence  (for  the  most  part) 
when  obtained,  he  could  descend  to  the 
grossest  flattery  to  obtain  this,  and  we  could 
wish  him  forever  banished  from  the  court, 
whose  favors  he  so  earnestly  sought.  Yet 
that  he  who  was  one  while  "  the  Queen  of 
England's  poor  captive,"  could  sometimes 
assume  a  manly  and  independent  tone  with 
her,  appears  from  his  answer  when  she  once 
exclaimed,  on  his  asking  a  favor  for  a  friend, 
"  When,  Sir  Walter,  will  you  cease  to  be  a 
beggar?"  "When  your  gracious  Majesty 
ceases  to  be  a  benefactor." 

His  court  life  exhibits  him  in  mean  and 
frivolous  relations,  which  make  him  lose 
that  respect  in  our  eyes  which  he  had 
acquired  elsewhere. 

The  base  use  he  made  of  his  recovered 
influence  (after  having  been  banished  from 
the  court,  and  even  suffered  imprisonment 
in  consequence  of  the  Queen's  displeasure) 
to  procure  the  disgrace  and  finally  the 


execution  of  his  rival  Essex  (who  had  been 
charged  with  treason)  is  the  foulest  stain 
upon  his  escutcheon,  the  one  which  it  is 
hardest  to  reconcile  with  the  nobleness  and 
generosity  which  we  are  inclined  to  attribute 
to  such  a  character.  Revenge  is  most  un- 
heroic.  His  acceptance  of  bribes  afterwards 
for  using  his  influence  in  behalf  of  the  earl's 
adherents  is  not  to  be  excused  by  the  usage 
of  the  times.  The  times  may  change,  but 
the  laws  of  integrity  and  magnanimity  are 
immutable.  Nor  are  the  terms  on  which 
he  was  the  friend  of  Cecil,  from  motives 
of  policy  merely,  more  tolerable  to  con 
sider.  Yet  we  cannot  but  think  that  he  fre 
quently  travelled  a  higher,  though  a  parallel, 
course  with  the  mob,  and  though  he  had 
their  suffrages,  to  some  extent  deserves  the 
praise  which  Jonson  applies  to  another,  — 

That  to  the  vulgar  canst  thyself  apply, 
Treading  a  better  path  not  contrary. 

We  gladly  make  haste  to  consider  him  in 
what  the  world  calls  his  misfortune,  after 
the  death  of  Elizabeth  and  the  accession 
of  James  I,  when  his  essentially  nobler 

[30] 


nature  was  separated  from  the  base  com 
pany  of  the  court  and  the  contaminations 
which  his  loyalty  could  not  resist,  though 
tested  by  imprisonment  and  the  scaffold. 

His  enemies  had  already  prejudiced  the 
King  against  him  before  James's  accession 
to  the  throne,  and  when  at  length  the 
English  nobility  were  presented  to  his 
Majesty  (who,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
a  Scotchman),  and  Raleigh's  name  was  told, 
"  Raleigh  !  "  exclaimed  the  King,  "  O  my 
soule,  mon,  I  have  heard  rawly  of  thee." 
His  efforts  to  limit  the  King's  power  of 
introducing  Scots  into  England  contributed 
to  increase  his  jealousy  and  dislike,  and  he 
was  shortly  after  accused  by  Lord  Cobham 
of  participating  in  a  conspiracy  to  place 
the  Lady  Arabella  Stuart2  on  the  throne. 
Owing  mainly,  it  is  thought,  to  the  King's 
resentment,  he  was  tried  and  falsely  con 
victed  of  high  treason ;  though  his  accuser 
retracted  in  writing  his  whole  accusation 
before  the  conclusion  of  the  trial. 

In  connection  with  his  earlier  behavior 
to  Essex,  it  should  be  remembered  that  by 
his  conduct  on  his  own  trial  he  in  a  great 


measure  removed  the  ill-will  which  existed 
against  him  on  that  account.  At  his  trial, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  most  unjustly 
and  insolently  conducted  by  Sir  Edward 
Coke  on  the  part  of  the  Crown,  "he  an 
swered,"  says  one,  "with  that  temper,  wit, 
learning,  courage,  and  judgment  that,  save 
that  it  went  with  the  hazard  of  his  life,  it 
was  the  happiest  day  that  ever  he  spent." 
The  first  two  that  brought  the  news  of  his 
condemnation  to  the  King  were  Roger  Ash- 
ton  and  a  Scotsman,  "  whereof  one  affirmed 
that  never  any  man  spake  so  well  in  times 
past,  nor  would  in  the  world  to  come ;  and 
the  other  said,  that  whereas  when  he  saw 
him  first,  he  was  so  led  with  the  common 
hatred  that  he  would  have  gone  a  hundred 
miles  to  have  seen  him  hanged,  he  would, 
ere  he  parted,  have  gone  a  thousand  to  have 
saved  his  life."  Another  says,  "  he  behaved 
himself  so  worthily,  so  wisely,  and  so  tem 
perately,  that  in  half  a  day  the  mind  of  all 
the  company  was  changed  from  the  extrem- 
est  hate  to  the  extremest  pity."  And  an 
other  said,  "  to  the  lords  he  was  humble,  but 
not  prostrate;  to  the  jury  affable,  but  not 
[3*]  ' 


fawning ;  to  the  King's  counsel  patient,  but 
not  yielding  to  the  imputations  laid  upon 
him,  or  neglecting  to  repel  them  with  the 
spirit  which  became  an  injured  and  hon 
orable  man."  And  finally  he  followed  the 
sheriff  out  of  court  in  the  expressive  words 
of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  "  with  admirable 
erection,  but  yet  in  such  sort  as  became  a 
man  condemned." 

Raleigh  prepared  himself  for  immediate 
execution,  but  after  his  pretended  accom 
plices  had  gone  through  the  ceremony  of  a 
mock  execution  and  been  pardoned  by  the 
King,  it  satisfied  the  policy  of  his  enemies 
to  retain  him  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  for 
thirteen  years,  with  the  sentence  of  death  still 
unrevoked.  In  the  meanwhile  he  solaced 
himself  in  his  imprisonment  with  writ 
ing  a  History  of  the  World  and  cultivating 
poetry  and  philosophy  as  the  noblest  deeds 
compatible  with  his  confinement. 

It  is  satisfactory  to  contrast  with  his  mean 
personal  relations  while  at  court  his  con 
nection  in  the  Tower  with  the  young  Prince 
Henry  (whose  tastes  and  aspirations  were  of 
a  stirring  kind),  as  his  friend  and  instructor. 

[33] 


He  addresses  some  of  his  shorter  pieces  to 
the  Prince,  and  in  some  instances  they  seem 
to  have  been  written  expressly  for  his  use. 
He  preaches  to  him  as  he  was  well  able, 
from  experience,  a  wiser  philosophy  than  he 
had  himself  practised,  and  was  particularly 
anxious  to  correct  in  him  a  love  of  popular 
ity  which  he  had  discovered,  and  to  give 
him  useful  maxims  for  his  conduct  when 
he  should  take  his  father's  place. 

He  lost  neither  health  nor  spirits  by  thir 
teen  years  of  captivity,  but  after  having  spent 
this,  the  literary  era  of  his  life,  as  in  the 
retirement  of  his  study,  and  having  written 
the  history  of  the  Old  World,  he  began  to 
dream  of  actions  which  would  supply  mate 
rials  to  the  future  historian  of  the  New.  It 
is  interesting  to  consider  him,  a  close  pris 
oner  as  he  was,  preparing  for  voyages  and 
adventures  which  would  require  him  to 
roam  more  broadly  than  was  consistent 
with  the  comfort  or  ambition  of  his  freest 
contemporaries. 

Already  in  1595,  eight  years  before  his 
imprisonment,  it  will  be  remembered  he  had 
undertaken  his  first  voyage  to  Guiana  in 

[34] 


person  ;  mainly,  it  is  said,  to  recover  favor 
with  the  Queen,  but  doubtless  it  was  much 
more  to  recover  favor  with  himself,  and  ex 
ercise  his  powers  in  fields  more  worthy  of 
him  than  a  corrupt  court.  He  continued 
to  cherish  this  his  favorite  project  though  a 
prisoner;  and  at  length  in  the  thirteenth 
year  of  his  imprisonment,  through  the  in 
fluence  of  his  friends  and  his  confident 
assertions  respecting  the  utility  of  the  expe 
dition  to  the  country,  he  obtained  his  release, 
and  set  sail  for  Guiana  with  twelve  ships. 
But  unfortunately  he  neglected  to  procure  a 
formal  pardon  from  the  King,  trusting  to 
the  opinion  of  Lord  Bacon  that  this  was 
unnecessary,  since  the  sentence  of  death 
against  him  was  virtually  annulled,  by  the 
lives  of  others  being  committed  to  his 
hands.  Acting  on  this  presumption,  and 
with  the  best  intentions  toward  his  country, 
and  only  his  usual  jealousy  of  Spain,  he  un 
dertook  to  make  good  his  engagements  to 
himself  and  the  world. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  at  this  day  to  realize 
what  extravagant  expectations  Europe  had 
formed  respecting  the  wealth  of  the  New 

[35] 


World.  We  might  suppose  two  whole  con 
tinents,  with  their  adjacent  seas  and  oceans, 
equal  to  the  known  globe,  stretching  from 
pole  to  pole,  and  possessing  every  variety 
of  soil,  climate,  and  productions,  lying  un 
explored  to-day,  —  what  would  now  be  the 
speculations  of  Broadway  and  State  Street  ? 

The  few  travellers  who  had  penetrated 
into  the  country  of  Guiana,  whither  Raleigh 
was  bound,  brought  back  accounts  of  noble 
streams  flowing  through  majestic  forests,  and 
a  depth  and  luxuriance  of  soil  which  made 
England  seem  a  barren  waste  in  comparison. 
Its  mineral  wealth  was  reported  to  be  as  in 
exhaustible  as  the  cupidity  of  its  discoverers 
was  unbounded.  The  very  surface  of  the 
ground  was  said  to  be  resplendent  with  gold, 
and  the  men  went  covered  with  gold-dust, 
as  Hottentots  with  grease.  Raleigh  was  in 
formed  while  at  Trinidad,  by  the  Spanish 
governor,  who  was  his  prisoner,  that  one  Juan 
Martinez  had  at  length  penetrated  into  this 
country ;  and  the  stories  told  by  him  of  the 
wealth  and  extent  of  its  cities  surpass  the 
narratives  of  Marco  Polo  himself.  He  is 
said  in  particular  to  have  reached  the  city 

[36] 


of  Manoa,  to  which  he  first  gave  the  name 
of  El  Dorado,  or  « The  Gilded,"  the  In 
dians  conducting  him  blindfolded,  not  re 
moving  the  veil  from  his  eyes  till  he  was 
ready  to  enter  the  city.  It  was  at  noon  that 
he  passed  the  gates,  and  it  took  him  all  that 
day  and  the  next,  walking  from  sunrise  to 
sunset,  before  he  arrived  at  the  palace  of 
Inga,  where  he  resided  for  seven  months, 
till  he  had  made  himself  master  of  the  lan 
guage  of  the  country.  These  and  even  more 
fanciful  accounts  had  Raleigh  heard  and 
pondered,  both  before  and  after  his  first  visit 
to  the  country.  No  one  was  more  familiar 
with  the  stories,  both  true  and  fabulous, 
respecting  the  discovery  and  resources  of  the 
New  World,  and  none  had  a  better  right 
than  he  to  know  what  great  commanders 
and  navigators  had  done  there,  or  anywhere. 
Such  information  would  naturally  flow  to 
him  of  its  own  accord.  That  his  ardor  and 
faith  were  hardly  cooled  by  actual  observa 
tion  may  be  gathered  from  the  tone  of  his 
own  description. 

He  was  the  first  Englishman  who  ascended 
the  Orinoco,  and  he  thus  describes  the  adja- 

[37] 


cent  country :  "  On  the  banks  were  divers 
sorts  of  fruits  good  to  eat,  besides  flowers  and 
trees  of  that  variety  as  were  sufficient  to 
make  ten  volumes  of  herbals.  We  relieved 
ourselves  many  times  with  the  fruits  of  the 
country,  and  sometimes  with  fowl  and  fish  : 
we  saw  birds  of  all  colors,  some  carnation, 
some  crimson,  orange  tawny,  purple,  green, 
watched  [watchet],  and  of  all  other  sorts, 
both  simple  and  mixt ;  as  it  was  unto  us  a 
great  good  passing  of  the  time  to  behold 
them,  besides  the  relief  we  found  by  killing 
some  store  of  them  with  our  fowling  pieces, 
without  which,  having  little  or  no  bread,  and 
less  drink,  but  only  the  thick  and  troubled 
water  of  the  river,  we  had  been  in  a  very 
hard  case." 

The  following  is  his  description  of  the 
waterfalls  and  the  province  of  Canuri, 
through  which  last  the  river  runs.  "  When 
we  run  to  the  tops  of  the  first  hills  of  the 
plains  adjoining  to  the  river,  we  beheld  that 
wonderful  breach  of  waters  which  ran  down 
Caroli :  and  might  from  that  mountain  see 
the  river  how  it  ran  in  three  parts  above 
twenty  miles  off;  there  appeared  some  ten 

[38] 


or  twelve  overfalls  in  sight,  every  one  as  high 
over  the  other  as  a  church  tower,  which  fell 
with  that  fury,  that  the  rebound  of  waters 
made  it  seem  as  if  it  had  been  all  covered 
over  with  a  great  shower  of  rain  :  and  in 
some  places  we  took  it  at  the  first  for  a 
smoke  that  had  risen  over  some  great  town. 
For  mine  own  part,  I  was  well  persuaded 
from  thence  to  have  returned,  being  a  very 
ill  footman  ;  but  the  rest  were  all  so  desirous 
to  go  near  the  said  strange  thunder  of  waters, 
as  they  drew  me  on  by  little  and  little,  into 
the  next  valley,  where  we  might  better 
discern  the  same.  I  never  saw  a  more  beau 
tiful  country,  nor  more  lively  prospects,  hills 
so  raised  here  and  there  over  the  valleys, 
the  river  winding  into  divers  branches,  the 
plains  adjoining  without  bush  or  stubble, 
all  fair  green  grass,  the  ground  of  hard  sand, 
easy  to  march  on  either  for  horse  or  foot, 
the  deer  crossing  in  every  path,  the  birds 
towards  the  evening  singing  on  every  tree 
with  a  thousand  several  tunes,  cranes  and 
herons  of  white,  crimson,  and  carnation 
perching  on  the  river's  side,  the  air  fresh, 
with  a  gentle  easterly  wind  ;  and  every  stone 

[39] 


that  we  stopped  to  take  up  promised  either 
gold  or  silver  by  his  complexion." 

In  another  place  he  says :  "  To  conclude, 
Guiana  is  a  country  never  sacked,  turned, 
nor  wrought ;  the  face  of  the  earth  hath  not 
been  torn,  nor  the  virtue  and  salt  of  the  soil 
spent  by  manurance." 

To  the  fabulous  accounts  of  preceding  ad 
venturers  Raleigh  added  many  others  equally 
absurd  and  poetical,  as,  for  instance,  of  a 
tribe  "  with  eyes  in  their  shoulders  and 
their  mouths  in  the  middle  of  their  breasts," 
but,  it  seems  to  us,  with  entire  good  faith, 
and  no  such  flagrant  intent  to  deceive  as  he 
has  been  accused  of.  "  Weak  policy  it 
would  be  in  me,"  says  he,  "  to  betray  my 
self  or  my  country  with  imaginations ; 
neither  am  I  so  far  in  love  with  that  lodg 
ing,  watching,  care,  peril,  diseases,  ill  savors, 
bad  fare,  and  many  other  mischiefs  that  ac 
company  these  voyages,  as  to  woo  myself 
again  into  any  of  them,  were  I  not  assured 
that  the  sun  covereth  not  so  much  riches  in 
any  part  of  the  earth."  Some  portion  of 
this  so  prevalent  delusion  respecting  the  pre 
cious  metals  is  no  doubt  to  be  referred  to  the 

[40] 


actual  presence  of  an  abundance  of  mica, 
slate,  and  talc  and  other  shining  substances 
in  the  soil.  "We  may  judge,"  says  Macaulay, 
"  of  the  brilliancy  of  these  deceptious  appear 
ances,  from  learning  that  the  natives  ascribed 
the  lustre  of  the  Magellanic  clouds  or  nebulae 
of  the  southern  hemisphere  to  the  bright 
reflections  produced  by  them."  So  he  was 
himself  most  fatally  deceived,  and  that  too 
by  the  strength  and  candor  no  less  than  the 
weakness  of  his  nature,  for,  generally  speak 
ing,  such  things  are  not  to  be  disbelieved  as 
task  our  imaginations  to  conceive  of,  but 
such  rather  as  are  too  easily  embraced  by 
the  understanding. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  he  was  tempted,  not 
so  much  by  the  lustre  of  the  gold,  as  by  the 
splendor  of  the  enterprise  itself.  It  was  the 
best  move  that  peace  allowed.  The  expe 
ditions  to  Guiana  and  the  ensuing  golden 
dreams  were  not  wholly  unworthy  of  him, 
though  he  accomplished  little  more  in  the  first 
voyage  than  to  take  formal  possession  of  the 
country  in  the  name  of  the  Queen,  and  in  the 
second,  of  the  Spanish  town  of  San  Thome, 
as  his  enemies  would  say,  in  the  name  of 


himself.  Perceiving  that  the  Spaniards,  who 
had  been  secretly  informed  of  his  designs 
through  their  ambassador  in  England,  were 
prepared  to  thwart  his  endeavors,  and  resist 
his  progress  in  the  country,  he  procured  the 
capture  of  this  their  principal  town,  which 
was  also  burnt,  against  his  orders. 

But  it  seems  that  no  particular  exception 
is  to  be  taken  against  these  high-handed 
measures,  though  his  enemies  have  made 
the  greatest  handle  of  them.  His  behavior 
on  this  occasion  was  part  and  parcel  of  his 
constant  character.  It  would  not  be  easy 
to  say  when  he  ceased  to  be  an  honorable 
soldier  and  became  a  freebooter  ;  nor  indeed 
is  it  of  so  much  importance  to  inquire  of  a 
man  what  actions  he  performed  at  one  and 
what  at  another  period,  as  what  manner  of 
man  he  was  at  all  periods.  It  was  after  all 
the  same  Raleigh  who  had  won  so  much  re 
nown  by  land  and  sea,  at  home  and  abroad. 
It  was  his  forte  to  deal  vigorously  with 
men,  whether  as  a  statesman,  a  courtier,  a 
navigator,  a  planter  of  colonies,  an  accused 
person,  a  prisoner,  an  explorer  of  continents, 
or  a  military  or  naval  commander. 

[42] 


And  it  was  a  right  hero's  maxim  of  his, 
that  "  good  success  admits  of  no  examina 
tion  ; "  which,  in  a  liberal  sense,  is  true 
conduct.  That  there  was  no  cant  in  him 
on  the  subject  of  war  appears  from  his  say 
ing  (which  indeed  is  very  true),  that  "the 
necessity  of  war,  which  among  human  ac 
tions  is  most  lawless,  hath  some  kind  of 
affinity  and  near  resemblance  with  the  ne 
cessity  of  law."  It  is  to  be  remembered, 
too,  that  if  the  Spaniards  found  him  a  rest 
less  and  uncompromising  enemy,  the  In 
dians  experienced  in  him  a  humane  and 
gentle  defender,  and  on  his  second  visit  to 
Guiana  remembered  his  name  and  wel 
comed  him  with  enthusiasm. 

We  are  told  that  the  Spanish  ambassador, 
on  receiving  intelligence  of  his  doings  in 
that  country,  rushed  into  the  presence  of 
King  James,  exclaiming  "  Piratas,  piratas!  " 
— "  Pirates,  pirates !  "  and  the  King,  to 
gratify  his  resentment,  without  bringing 
him  to  trial  for  this  alleged  new  offence, 
with  characteristic  meanness  and  pusillanim 
ity  caused  him  to  be  executed  upon  the  old 
sentence  soon  after  his  return  to  England. 

[43] 


The  circumstances  of  his  execution  and 
how  he  bore  himself  on  that  memorable  oc 
casion,  when  the  sentence  of  death  passed 
fifteen  years  before  was  revived  against  him, 
—  after  as  an  historian  in  his  confinement 
he  had  visited  the  Old  World  in  his  free  im 
agination,  and  as  an  unrestrained  adventurer 
the  New,  with  his  fleets  and  in  person,  — 
are  perhaps  too  well  known  to  be  repeated. 
The  reader  will  excuse  our  hasty  rehearsal 
of  the  final  scene. 

We  can  pardon,  though  not  without  limi 
tations,  his  supposed  attempt  at  suicide  in 
the  prospect  of  defeat  and  disgrace ;  and  no 
one  can  read  his  letter  to  his  wife,  written 
while  he  was  contemplating  this  act,  with 
out  being  reminded  of  the  Roman  Cato, 
and  admiring  while  he  condemns  him. 
"  I  know,"  says  he,  "  that  it  is  forbidden 
to  destroy  ourselves ;  but  I  trust  it  is  for 
bidden  in  this  sort,  that  we  destroy  not  our 
selves  despairing  of  God's  mercy."  Though 
his  greatness  seems  to  have  forsaken  him 
in  his  feigning  himself  sick,  and  the  base 
methods  he  took  to  avoid  being  brought  to 
trial,  yet  he  recovered  himself  at  last,  and 

[44] 


happily  withstood  the  trials  which  awaited 
him.  The  night  before  his  execution,  be 
sides  writing  letters  of  farewell  to  his  wife, 
containing  the  most  practical  advice  for  the 
conduct  of  her  life,  he  appears  to  have 
spent  the  time  in  writing  verses  on  his  con 
dition,  and  among  others  this  couplet,  On 
the  Snuff  of  a  Candle. 

Cowards  may  fear  to  die ;  but  courage  stout, 
Rather  than  live  in  snuff,  will  be  put  out. 

And  the  following  verses,  perhaps,  for  an 
epitaph  on  himself: 

Even  such  is  time,  that  takes  on  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have, 
And  pays  us  but  with  earth  and  dust; 
Who  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 
Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days  ! 
But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 
The  Lord  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust ! 

His  execution  was  appointed  on  Lord 
Mayor's  day,  that  the  pageants  and  shows 
might  divert  the  attention  of  the  people ; 
but  those  pageants  have  long  since  been  for 
gotten,  while  this  tragedy  is  still  remem- 

[45] 


bered.  He  took  a  pipe  of  tobacco  before 
he  went  to  the  scaffold,  and  appeared  there 
with  a  serene  countenance,  so  that  a  stranger 
could  not  have  told  which  was  the  con 
demned  person.  After  exculpating  him 
self  in  a  speech  to  the  people,  and  without 
ostentation  having  felt  the  edge  of  the  axe, 
and  disposed  himself  once  as  he  wished  to  lie, 
he  made  a  solemn  prayer,  and  being  directed 
to  place  himself  so  that  his  face  should  look 
to  the  east,  his  characteristic  answer  was, 
"  It  mattered  little  how  the  head  lay,  pro 
vided  the  heart  was  right/'  The  execu 
tioner  being  overawed  was  unable  at  first  to 
perform  his  office,  when  Raleigh,  slowly 
raising  his  head,  exclaimed,  "  Strike  away, 
man,  don't  be  afraid."  "  He  was  the  most 
fearless  of  death,"  says  the  bishop 3  who  at 
tended  him,  "  that  ever  was  known,  and 
the  most  resolute  and  confident,  yet  with 
reverence  and  conscience."  But  we  would 
not  exaggerate  the  importance  of  these 
things.  The  death  scenes  of  great  men 
are  agreeable  to  consider  only  when  they 
make  another  and  harmonious  chapter  of 
their  lives,  and  we  have  accompanied  our 

[46] 


hero  thus  far  because  he  lived,  so  to  speak, 
unto  the  end. 

In  his  History  of  the  World  occurs  this 
sentence :  "  O  eloquent,  just,  and  mighty 
Death  !  Whom  none  could  advise,  thou 
hast  persuaded  ;  what  none  hath  dared,  thou 
hast  done ;  and  whom  all  the  world  hath 
flattered,  thou  only  hast  cast  out  of  the 
world  and  despised :  thou  hast  drawn  to 
gether  all  the  far-stretched  greatness,  all  the 
pride,  cruelty,  and  ambition  of  man,  and 
covered  it  all  over  with  those  two  narrow 
words  —  Hie  iacet!" 

Perhaps  Raleigh  was  the  man  of  the  most 
general  information  and  universal  accom 
plishment  of  any  in  England.  Though  he 
excelled  greatly  in  but  few  departments,  yet 
he  reached  a  more  valuable  mediocrity  in 
many.  "  He  seemed,"  said  Fuller,  "  to  be 
like  Cato  Uticensis,  born  to  that  only  which 
he  was  about/'  He  said  he  had  been  "  a 
soldier,  a  sea-captain,  and  a  courtier,"  but 
he  had  been  much  more  than  this.  He 
embraced  in  his  studies  music,  ornamental 
gardening,  painting,  history,  antiquities, 
chemistry,  and  many  arts  beside.  Espe- 

[47] 


cially  he  is  said  to  have  been  a  great  chemist, 
and  studied  most  in  his  sea  voyages,  "  when 
he  carried  always  a  trunk  of  books  along  with 
him,  and  had  nothing  to  divert  him/'  and 
when  also  he  carried  his  favorite  pictures. 
In  the  Tower,  too,  says  one,  "he  doth  spend 
all  the  day  in  distillations ;  "  and  that  this 
was  more  than  a  temporary  recreation  ap 
pears  from  the  testimony  of  one  who  says 
he  was  operator  to  him  for  twelve  years. 
Here  also  "he  conversed  on  poetry,  phi 
losophy,  and  literature  with  Hoskins,  his 
fellow-prisoner,"  whom  Ben  Jonson  men 
tions  as  "  the  person  who  had  polished 
him."  He  was  a  political  economist  far  in 
advance  of  his  age,  and  a  sagacious  and  in 
fluential  speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Science  is  indebted  to  him  in  more  ways 
than  one.  In  the  midst  of  pressing  public 
cares  he  interested  himself  to  establish  some 
means  of  universal  communication  between 
men  of  science  for  their  mutual  benefit,  and 
actually  set  up  what  he  termed  "  An  office 
of  address  "  for  this  purpose.  As  a  mathe 
matician,  he  was  the  friend  of  Harriot,  Dee, 
and  the  Earl  of  Northumberland.  As  an 

[48] 


antiquarian,  he  was  a  member  of  the  first 
antiquarian  society  established  in  England, 
along  with  Spelman,  Selden,  Cotton,  Cam- 
den,  Savile,  and  Stow.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  the  founder  of  the  Mermaid  Club, 
which  met  in  Fleet  Street,  to  which  Shake 
speare,  Ben  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Beaumont, 
Carew,  Donne,  etc.,  belonged.  He  has  the 
fame  of  having  first  introduced  the  potato 
from  Virginia  and  the  cherry  from  the  Ca 
naries  into  Ireland,  where  his  garden  was ; 
and  his  manor  of  Sherborne 4  "  he  beautified 
with  gardens,  and  orchards,  and  groves  of 
much  variety  and  delight."  And  this  fact, 
evincing  his  attention  to  horticulture,  is  re 
lated,  that  once,  on  occasion  of  the  Queen's 
visiting  him,  he  artificially  retarded  the 
ripening  of  some  cherries  by  stretching  a 
wet  canvas  over  the  tree,  and  removed  it  on 
a  sunny  day,  so  as  to  present  the  fruit  ripe 
to  the  Queen  a  month  later  than  usual. 

Not  to  omit  a  more  doubtful  but  not  less 
celebrated  benefit,  it  is  said  that  on  the  re 
turn  of  his  first  colonists  from  Virginia  in 
1586  tobacco  was  first  effectually  intro 
duced  into  England,  and  its  use  encouraged 

[49] 


by  his  influence  and  example.  And  finally, 
not  to  be  outdone  by  the  quacks,  he  invented 
a  cordial  which  became  very  celebrated, 
bore  his  name,  and  was  even  administered 
to  the  Queen,  and  to  the  Prince  Henry  in 
his  last  illness.  One  Febure  writes  that "  Sir 
Walter,  being  a  worthy  successor  of  Mithri- 
dates,  Matheolus,  Basil  Valentine,  Paracel 
sus,  and  others,  has,  he  affirms,  selected  all 
that  is  choicest  in  the  animal,  vegetable,  and 
mineral  world,  and  moreover  manifested  so 
much  art  and  experience  in  the  preparation 
of  this  great  and  admirable  cordial  as  will 
of  itself  render  him  immortal." 

We  come  at  last  to  consider  him  as  a 
literary  man  and  a  writer,  concerning  which 
aspect  of  his  life  we  are  least  indebted  to 
the  historian  for  our  facts. 

As  he  was  heroic  with  the  sword,  so  was 
he  with  the  pen.  The  History  of  the  World, 
the  task  which  he  selected  for  his  prison 
hours,  was  heroic  in  the  undertaking  and 
heroic  in  the  achievement.  The  easy  and 
cheerful  heart  with  which  he  endured  his 
confinement,  turning  his  prison  into  a  study, 
a  parlor,  and  a  laboratory,  and  his  prison- 

[50] 


yard  into  a  garden,  so  that  men  did  not  so 
much  pity  as  admire  him;  the  steady  pur 
pose  with  which  he  set  about  fighting 
his  battles,  prosecuting  his  discoveries,  and 
gathering  his  laurels,  with  the  pen,  if  he 
might  no  longer  with  regiments  and  fleets, 
—  is  itself  an  exploit.  In  writing  the  His 
tory  of  the  World  he  was  indeed  at  liberty ; 
for  he  who  contemplates  truth  and  universal 
laws  is  free,  whatever  walls  immure  his 
body,  though  to  our  brave  prisoner  thus 
employed,  mankind  may  have  seemed  but 
his  poor  fellow-prisoners  still. 

Though  this  remarkable  work  interests 
us  more,  on  the  whole,  as  a  part  of  the 
history  of  Raleigh  than  as  the  History  of 
the  World,  yet  it  was  done  like  himself,  and 
with  no  small  success.  The  historian  of 
Greece  and  Rome  is  usually  unmanned  by 
his  subject,  as  a  peasant  crouches  before 
lords ;  but  Raleigh,  though  he  succumbs  to 
the  imposing  fame  of  tradition  and  antedi 
luvian  story,  and  exhibits  unnecessary  rever 
ence  for  a  prophet  or  patriarch,  from  his 
habit  of  innate  religious  courtesy,  has  done 
better  than  this  whenever  a  hero  was  to  be 


dealt  with.  He  stalks  down  through  the 
aisles  of  the  past,  as  through  the  avenues  of 
a  camp,  with  poets  and  historians  for  his 
heralds  and  guides ;  and  from  whatever 
side  the  faintest  trump  reaches  his  ear,  that 
way  does  he  promptly  turn,  though  to  the 
neglect  of  many  a  gaudy  pavilion. 

From  a  work  so  little  read  in  these  days 
we  will  venture  to  quote  as  specimens  the 
following  criticisms  on  Alexander  and  the 
character  of  Epaminondas.  They  will,  at  any 
rate,  teach  our  lips  no  bad  habits.  There 
is  a  natural  emphasis  in  his  style,  like  a 
man's  tread,  and  a  breathing  space  between 
the  sentences,  which  the  best  of  more  modern 
writing  does  not  furnish.  His  chapters  are 
like  English  parks,  or  rather  like  a  Western 
forest,  where  the  larger  growth  keeps  down 
the  underwood,  and  one  may  ride  on  horse 
back  through  the  openings.6 

"  Certainly  the  things  that  this  King  did 
were  marvellous,  and  would  hardly  have  been 
undertaken  by  any  man  else  :  and  though 
his  father  had  determined  to  have  invaded 
the  lesser  Asia,  it  is  like  enough  that  he 
would  have  contented  himself  with  some 


part  thereof,  and  not  have  discovered  the 
river  of  Indus,  as  this  man  did.  The  swift 
course  of  victory,  wherewith  he  ran  over 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  world,  in  so 
short  a  space,  may  justly  be  imputed  unto 
this,  that  he  was  never  encountered  by  an 
equal  spirit,  concurring  with  equal  power 
against  him.  Hereby  it  came  to  pass,  that 
his  actions,  being  limited  by  no  greater  op 
position  than  desert  places,  and  the  mere 
length  of  tedious  journeys  could  make,  were 
like  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  not  so  much 
to  be  admired  for  the  workmanship,  though 
therein  also  praiseworthy,  as  for  the  huge 
bulk.  For  certainly  the  things  performed 
by  Xenophon,  discover  as  brave  a  spirit  as 
Alexander's,  and  working  no  less  exquisitely, 
though  the  effects  were  less  material,  as  were 
also  the  forces  and  power  of  command,  by 
which  it  wrought.  But  he  that  would  find 
the  exact  pattern  of  a  noble  commander, 
must  look  upon  such  as  Epaminondas,  that 
encountering  worthy  captains,  and  those  bet 
ter  followed  than  themselves,  have  by  their 
singular  virtue  over-topped  their  valiant  ene 
mies,  and  still  prevailed  over  those  that 

[53] 


would  not  have  yielded  one  foot  to  any 
other.  Such  as  these  are  do  seldom  live  to 
obtain  great  empires;  for  it  is  a  work  of 
more  labor  and  longer  time  to  master  the 
equal  forces  of  one  hardy  and  well-ordered 
state,  than  to  tread  down  and  utterly  sub 
due  a  multitude  of  servile  nations,  com 
pounding  the  body  of  a  gross  unwieldy 
empire.  Wherefore  these parvopof en fes,  men 
that  with  little  have  done  much  upon  ene 
mies  of  like  ability,  are  to  be  regarded  as 
choice  examples  of  worth ;  but  great  con 
querors,  to  be  rather  admired  for  the  sub 
stance  of  their  actions,  than  the  exquisite 
managing :  exactness  and  greatness  concur 
ring  so  seldom,  that  I  can  find  no  instance 
of  both  in  one,  save  only  that  brave  Roman, 
Caesar." 

Of  Epaminondas  he  says,  "So  died 
Epaminondas,  the  worthiest  man  that  ever 
was  bred  in  that  nation  of  Greece,  and 
hardly  to  be  matched  in  any  age  or  country; 
for  he  equalled  all  others  in  the  several 
virtues,  which  in  each  of  them  were  singu 
lar.  His  justice,  and  sincerity,  his  temper 
ance,  wisdom,  and  high  magnanimity,  were 

[54] 


no  way  inferior  to  his  military  virtue ;  in 
every  part  whereof  he  so  excelled,  that  he 
could  not  properly  be  called  a  wary,  a  val 
iant,  a  politic,  a  bountiful,  or  an  industrious, 
and  a  provident  captain  ;  all  these  titles,  and 
many  others  being  due  unto  him,  which  with 
his  notable  discipline,  and  good  conduct, 
made  a  perfect  composition  of  an  heroic  gen 
eral.  Neither  was  his  private  conversation 
unanswerable  to  those  high  parts,  which  gave 
him  praise  abroad.  For  he  was  grave,  and 
yet  very  affable  and  courteous;  resolute  in 
public  business,  but  in  his  own  particular 
easy,  and  of  much  mildness ;  a  lover  of  his 
people,  bearing  with  men's  infirmities,  witty 
and  pleasant  in  speech,  far  from  insolence, 
master  of  his  own  affections,  and  furnished 
with  all  qualities  that  might  win  and  keep 
love.  To  these  graces  were  added  great 
ability  of  body,  much  eloquence  and  very 
deep  knowledge  of  philosophy  and  learn 
ing,  wherewith  his  mind  being  enlightened, 
rested  not  in  the  sweetness  of  contempla 
tion,  but  broke  forth  into  such  effects  as 
gave  unto  Thebes  which  had  ever  been  an 
underling,  a  dreadful  reputation  among  all 

[553 


people  adjoining,  and  the  highest  command 
in  Greece." 

For  the  most  part  an  author  only  writes 
history,  treating  it  as  a  dead  subject ;  but 
Raleigh  tells  it  like  a  fresh  story.  A  man 
of  action  himself,  he  knew  when  there  was 
an  action  coming  worthy  to  be  related,  and 
does  not  disappoint  the  reader,  as  is  too  com 
monly  the  case,  by  recording  merely  the 
traditionary  admiration  or  wonder.  In  com 
menting  upon  the  military  actions  of  the 
ancients,  he  easily  and  naturally  digresses  to 
some  perhaps  equal  action  of  his  own,  or 
within  his  experience;  and  he  tells  how 
they  should  have  drawn  up  their  fleets  or 
men,  with  the  authority  of  an  admiral  or 
general.  The  alacrity  with  which  he  ad 
verts  to  some  action  within  his  experience, 
and  slides  down  from  the  dignified  imper 
sonality  of  the  historian  into  the  familiarity 
and  interest  of  a  party  and  eye-witness,  is  as 
attractive  as  rare.  He  is  often  without  re 
proach  the  Caesar  of  his  own  story.  He 
treats  Scipio,  Pompey,  Hannibal,  and  the 
rest  quite  like  equals,  and  he  speaks  like  an 
eye-witness,  and  gives  life  and  reality  to  the 

[56] 


narrative  by  his  very  lively  understanding 
and  relating  of  it ;  especially  in  those  parts 
in  which  the  mere  scholar  is  most  likely  to 
fail.  Every  reader  has  observed  what  a  dust 
the  historian  commonly  raises  about  the  field 
of  battle,  to  serve  as  an  apology  for  not  mak 
ing  clear  the  disposition  and  manoeuvring 
of  the  parties,  so  that  the  clearest  idea  one 
gets  is  of  a  very  vague  counteraction  or 
standing  over  against  one  another  of  two 
forces.  In  this  history  we,  at  least,  have 
faith  that  these  things  are  right.  Our  author 
describes  an  ancient  battle  with  the  vivacity 
and  truth  of  an  eye-witness,  and  perhaps,  in 
criticising  the  disposition  of  the  forces,  say 
ing  they  should  have  stood  thus  or  so,  some 
times  enforces  his  assertions  in  some  such 
style  as  "I  remember  being  in  the  harbor 
of  Cadiz,"  etc.,  so  that,  as  in  Herodotus  and 
Thucydides,  we  associate  the  historian  with 
the  exploits  he  describes.  But  this  comes 
not  on  account  of  his  fame  as  a  writer,  but 
from  the  conspicuous  part  he  acted  on  the 
world's  stage,  and  his  name  is  of  equal  mark 
to  us  with  those  of  his  heroes.  So  in  the 
present  instance,  not  only  his  valor  as  a 

[57] 


writer,  but  the  part  he  acted  in  his  genera 
tion,  the  life  of  the  author,  seems  fit  to 
make  the  last  chapter  in  the  history  he  is 
writing.  We  expect  that  when  his  history 
is  brought  to  a  close  it  will  include  his  own 
exploits.  However,  it  is  hardly  a  work  to 
be  consulted  as  authority  nowadays,  except 
on  the  subject  of  its  author's  character. 

The  natural  breadth  and  grasp  of  the  man 
is  seen  in  the  preface  itself,  which  is  a  ser 
mon  with  human  life  for  its  text.  In  the 
first  books  he  discusses  with  childlike  ear 
nestness,  and  an  ingenuity  which  they  little 
deserved,  the  absurd  and  frivolous  questions 
which  engaged  the  theology  and  philosophy 
of  his  day.  But  even  these  are  recommended 
by  his  sincerity  and  fine  imagination,  while 
the  subsequent  parts,  or  story  itself,  have  the 
merit  of  being  far  more  credible  and  lifelike 
than  is  common.  He  shows  occasionally  a 
poet's  imagination,  and  the  innocence  and 
purity  of  a  child  (as  it  were)  under  a  knight's 
dress,  such  as  were  worthy  of  the  friend  of 
Spenser.  The  nobleness  of  his  nature  is 
everywhere  apparent.  The  gentleness  and 
steady  heart  with  which  he  cultivates  phi- 

[58] 


losophy  and  poetry  in  his  prison,  dissolving 
in  the  reader's  imagination  the  very  walls 
and  bars  by  his  childlike  confidence  in  truth 
and  his  own  destiny,  are  affecting.  Even 
astrology,  or,  as  he  has  elsewhere  called  it, 
"  star-learning,"  comes  recommended  from 
his  pen,  and  science  will  not  refuse  it. 

"And  certainly  it  cannot  be  doubted," 
says  he,  "  but  the  stars  are  instruments  of 
far  greater  use,  than  to  give  an  obscure  light, 
and  for  men  to  gaze  on  after  sunset :  it  being 
manifest,  that  the  diversity  of  seasons,  the 
winters  and  summers,  more  hot  and  cold, 
are  not  so  uncertained  by  the  sun  and  moon 
alone,  who  alway  keep  one  and  the  same 
course;  but  that  the  stars  have  also  their 
working  therein. 

"And  if  we  cannot  deny,  but  that  God  hath 
given  virtues  to  springs  and  fountains,  to  cold 
earth,  to  plants  and  stones,  minerals,  and  to 
the  excremental  parts  of  the  basest  living 
creatures,  why  should  we  rob  the  beautiful 
stars  of  their  working  powers  ?  for  seeing 
they  are  many  in  number,  and  of  eminent 
beauty  and  magnitude,  we  may  not  think, 
that  in  the  treasury  of  his  wisdom,  who  is 
[J9] 


infinite,  there  can  be  wanting  (even  for  every 
star)  a  peculiar  virtue  and  operation ;  as 
every  herb,  plant,  fruit,  and  flower  adorning 
the  face  of  the  earth,  hath  the  like.  For  as 
these  were  not  created  to  beautify  the  earth 
alone,  and  to  cover  and  shadow  her  dusty 
face,  but  otherwise  for  the  use  of  man  and 
beast,  to  feed  them  and  cure  them ;  so  were 
not  those  uncountable  glorious  bodies  set  in 
the  firmament,  to  no  other  end,  than  to 
adorn  it ;  but  for  instruments  and  organs  of 
his  divine  providence,  so  far  as  it  hath  pleased 
his  just  will  to  determine. 

"Origen  upon  this  place  of  Genesis,  Let 
there  be  light  in  the  firmament,  &c.9  affirmeth, 
that  the  stars  are  not  causes  (meaning  per 
chance  binding  causes ; )  but  are  as  open 
books,  wherein  are  contained  and  set  down 
all  things  whatsoever  to  come  ;  but  not  to  be 
read  by  the  eyes  of  human  wisdom :  which 
latter  part  I  believe  well,  and  the  saying  of 
Syracides  withal ;  That  there  are  hid  yet  greater 
things  than  these  be,  and  we  have  seen  but  a  few 
of  his  works.  And  though,  for  the  capacity 
of  men,  we  know  somewhat,  yet  in  the  true 
and  uttermost  virtues  of  herbs  and  plants, 

[60] 


which  our  selves  sow  and  set,  and  which 
grow  under  our  feet,  we  are  in  effect  igno 
rant;  much  more  in  the  powers  and  working 
of  celestial  bodies.  .  .  .  But  in  this  question 
of  fate,  the  middle  course  is  to  be  followed, 
that  as  with  the  heathen  we  do  not  bind  God 
to  his  creatures,  in  this  supposed  necessity  of 
destiny ;  and  so  on  the  contrary  we  do  not 
rob  those  beautiful  creatures  of  their  powers 
and  offices.  .  .  .  And  that  they  wholly  di 
rect  the  reasonless  mind,  I  am  resolved :  for 
all  those  which  were  created  mortal,  as  birds, 
beasts,  and  the  like,  are  left  to  their  natural 
appetites  ;  over  all  which,  celestial  bodies  (as 
instruments  and  executioners  of  God's  provi 
dence)  have  absolute  dominion.  .  .  .  And 
Saint  Augustine  says,  Deus  regit  inferiora 
corpora  per  superiora ;  '  God  ruleth  the  bodies 
below  by  those  above/  ...  It  was  there 
fore  truly  affirmed,  Sapiens  adiuvabit  opus 
astrorum,  quemadmodum  agrlcola  terrae  na- 
turam;  '  A  wise  man  assist eth  the  work  of 
the  stars,  as  the  husbandman  helpeth  the 
nature  of  the  soil/  .  .  .  Lastly,  we  ought 
all  to  know,  that  God  created  the  stars  as 
he  did  the  rest  of  the  universal ;  whose  in- 
[61] 


fluences  may  be  called  his  reserved  and  un 
written  laws.  .  .  .  But  it  was  well  said  of 
Plotinus,  that  the  stars  were  significant,  but 
not  efficient,  giving  them  yet  something  less 
than  their  due:  and  therefore  as  I  do  not 
consent  with  them,  who  would  make  those 
glorious  creatures  of  God  virtueless:  so  I 
think  that  we  derogate  from  his  eternal  and 
absolute  power  and  providence,  to  ascribe  to 
them  the  same  dominion  over  our  immortal 
souls,  which  they  have  over  all  bodily  sub 
stances,  and  perishable  natures  :  for  the  souls 
of  men  loving  and  fearing  God,  receive  in 
fluence  from  that  divine  light  it  self,  whereof 
the  sun's  clarity,  and  that  of  the  stars,  is  by 
Plato  called  but  a  shadow,  Lumen  est  umbra 
Dei,  et  Deus  est  lumen  luminis;  <  Light  is  the 
shadow  of  God's  brightness,  who  is  the  light 
of  light/" 

We  are  reminded  by  this  of  Du  Bartas's 
poem  on  the  Probability  of  the  Celestial  Orbs 
being  inhabited^  translated  by  Sylvester  :8 

I  '11  ne'er  believe  that  the  arch- Architect 
With  all  these  fires  the  heavenly  arches  deck'd 
Only  for  shew,  and  with  their  glistering  shields 
T*  amaze  poor  shepherds,  watching  in  the  fields; 

[62] 


I'll  ne'er  believe  that  the  least  flow'r  that  pranks 
Our  garden  borders,  or  the  common  banks, 
And  the  least  stone,  that  in  her  warming  lap 
Our  kind  nurse  Earth  doth  covetously  wrap, 
Hath  some  peculiar  virtue  of  its  own, 
And  that  the  glorious  stars  of  heav'n  have  none. 

Nor  is  the  following  brief  review  and  exal 
tation  of  the  subject  of  all  history  unworthy 
of  a  place  in  this  History  of  the  World: 

"  Man,  thus  compounded  and  formed  by 
God,  was  an  abstract,  or  model,  or  brief 
story  in  the  universal :  .  .  .  for  out  of  the 
earth  and  dust  was  formed  the  flesh  of  man, 
and  therefore  heavy  and  lumpish  ;  the  bones 
of  his  body  we  may  compare  to  the  hard 
rocks  and  stones,  and  therefore  strong  and 
durable  ;  of  which  Ovid : 

Inde  genus  durum  sumus  experiensque  laborum, 
Et  documenta  damus,  qua  simus  origine  nati: 

From  thence  our  kind  hard-hearted  is, 

Enduring  pain  and  care, 
Approving,  that  our  bodies  of 

A  stony  nature  are. 

His  blood,  which  disperseth  it  self  by  the 
branches  of  veins  through  all  the  body,  may 
be  resembled  to  those  waters,  which  are 
carried  by  brooks  and  rivers  over  all  the 

[63] 


earth ;  his  breath  to  the  air,  his  natural  heat 
to  the  inclosed  warmth  which  the  earth 
hath  in  it  self,  which,  stirred  up  by  the  heat 
of  the  sun,  assisteth  nature  in  the  speedier 
procreation  of  those  varieties,  which  the 
earth  bringeth  forth ;  our  radical  moisture, 
oil  or  balsamum  (whereon  the  natural  heat 
feedeth  and  is  maintained)  is  resembled  to 
the  fat  and  fertility  of  the  earth ;  the  hairs 
of  man's  body,  which  adorns,  or  overshadows 
it,  to  the  grass,  which  covereth  the  upper  face 
and  skin  of  the  earth ;  our  generative  power, 
to  nature,  which  produceth  all  things;  our 
determinations,  to  the  light,  wandering,  and 
unstable  clouds,  carried  everywhere  with 
uncertain  winds ;  our  eyes  to  the  light  of 
the  sun  and  moon  ;  and  the  beauty  of  our 
youth,  to  the  flowers  of  the  spring,  which, 
either  in  a  very  short  time,  or  with  the  sun's 
heat,  dry  up  and  wither  away,  or  the  fierce 
pufFs  of  wind  blow  them  from  the  stalks ; 
the  thoughts  of  our  mind,  to  the  motion  of 
angels ;  and  our  pure  understanding  (for 
merly  called  mens,  and  that  which  always 
looketh  upwards)  to  those  intellectual  natures, 
which  are  always  present  with  God;  and  lastly, 


our  immortal  souls  (while  they  are  righteous) 
are  by  God  himself  beautified  with  the  title 
of  his  own  image  and  similitude." 

But  man  is  not  in  all  things  like  nature : 
"  For  this  tide  of  man's  life,  after  it  once 
turneth  and  declineth,  ever  runneth  with  a 
perpetual  ebb  and  falling  stream,  but  never 
floweth  again,  our  leaf  once  fallen,  springeth 
no  more ;  neither  doth  the  sun  or  the  sum 
mer  adorn  us  again  with  the  garments  of  new 
leaves  and  flowers." 

There  is  a  flowing  rhythm  in  some  of 
these  sentences  like  the  rippling  of  rivers, 
hardly  to  be  matched  in  any  prose  or  verse. 
The  following  is  his  poem  on  the  decay  of 
Oracles  and  Pantheism  : 

"The  fire  which  the  Chaldeans  wor 
shipped  for  a  god,  is  crept  into  every  man's 
chimney,  which  the  lack  of  fuel  starveth, 
water  quencheth,  and  want  of  air  sufFocateth: 
Jupiter  is  no  more  vexed  with  Juno's  jeal 
ousies  ;  death  hath  persuaded  him  to  chas 
tity,  and  her  to  patience ;  and  that  time 
which  hath  devoured  it  self,  hath  also  eaten 
up  both  the  bodies  and  images  of  him  and 
his;  yea,  their  stately  temples  of  stone  and 

[65] 


dureful  marble.     The  houses  and  sumptuous 
buildings  erected  to  Baal,  can  no  where  be 
found  upon  the  earth ;   nor  any  monument 
of  that  glorious  temple  consecrated  to  Diana. 
There  are  none  now  in  Phoenicia,  that  la 
ment  the  death  of  Adonis;   nor  any  in  Libya, 
Creta,  Thessalia,  or  elsewhere,  that  can  ask 
counsel  or  help  from  Jupiter.     The  great 
god  Pan  hath    broken  his  pipes ;   Apollo's 
priests  are  become  speechless ;  and  the  trade 
of  riddles  in  oracles,  with  the  devil's  telling 
men's  fortunes  therein,  is  taken  up  by  coun 
terfeit  Egyptians,  and  cozening  astrologers." 
In  his  Discourse  of  War  in  General y  (com 
mencing  with  almost  a  heroic  verse,  "  The 
ordinary  theme  and  argument  of  history  is 
war/')   are  many  things  well  thought,  and 
many  more  well  said.     He  thus  expands  the 
maxim    that    corporations    have    no    soul : 
"  But  no  senate  nor  civil  assembly  can  be 
under  such   natural  impulses  to  honor  and 
justice    as    single  persons.   .  .   .  For  a  ma 
jority  is  nobody  when  that  majority  is  sepa 
rated,  and  a  collective   body  can    have  no 
synteresis,  or  divine   ray,  which   is   in   the 
mind  of  every  man,  never  assenting  to  evil, 
£66] 


but  upbraiding  and  tormenting  him  when 
he  does  it:  but  the  honor  and  conscience 
that  lies  in  the  majority  is  too  thin  and  diffu 
sive  to  be  efficacious ;  for  a  number  can  do 
a  great  wrong,  and  call  it  right,  and  not  one 
of  that  majority  blush  for  it.  Hence  it  is, 
that  though  a  public  assembly  may  lie  under 
great  censures,  yet  each  member  looks  upon 
himself  as  little  concerned:  this  must  be  the 
reason  why  a  Roman  senate  should  act  with 
less  spirit  and  less  honor  than  any  single 
Roman  would  do." 

He  then  in  the  same  treatise  leaps  with 
easy  and  almost  merry  elasticity  from  the 
level  of  his  discourse  to  the  heights  of  his 
philosophy :  "  And  it  is  more  plain  there 
is  not  in  nature  a  point  of  stability  to  be 
found;  every  thing  either  ascends  or  declines: 
when  wars  are  ended  abroad,  sedition  begins 
at  home,  and  when  men  are  freed  from  fight 
ing  for  necessity,  they  quarrel  through  am 
bition." 

And  he  thus  concludes  this  discourse: 
"We  must  look  a  long  way  back  to  find 
the  Romans  giving  laws  to  nations,  and  their 
consuls  bringing  kings  and  princes  bound  in 


chains  to  Rome  in  triumph  ;  to  see  men  go 
to  Greece  for  wisdom,  or  Ophir  for  gold ; 
when  now  nothing  remains  but  a  poor  paper 
remembrance  of  their  former  condition. 

It  would  be  an  unspeakable  advantage, 
both  to  the  public  and  private,  if  men  would 
consider  that  great  truth,  that  no  man  is 
wise  or  safe,  but  he  that  is  honest.  All  I 
have  designed  is  peace  to  my  country ;  and 
may  England  enjoy  that  blessing  when  I 
shall  have  no  more  proportion  in  it  than 
what  my  ashes  make  !  " 

If  his  philosophy  is  for  the  most  part  poor, 
yet  the  conception  and  expression  are  rich 
and  generous. 

His  maxims  are  not  true  or  impartial,  but 
are  conceived  with  a  certain  magnanimity 
which  was  natural  to  him,  as  if  a  selfish 
policy  could  easily  afford  to  give  place  in 
him  to  a  more  universal  and  true. 

As  a  fact  evincing  Raleigh's  poetic  cul 
ture  and  taste,  it  is  said  that,  in  a  visit  to 
the  poet  Spenser  on  the  banks  of  the  Mulla, 
which  is  described  in  Colin  Clout's  Come 
Home  Again,  he  anticipated  the  judgment 
of  posterity  with  respect  to  the  Faerie 
[68] 


g>ueene,  and  by  his  sympathy  and  advice 
encouraged  the  poet  to  go  on  with  his 
work,  which  by  the  advice  of  other  friends, 
among  whom  was  Sidney,  he  had  laid  aside. 
His  own  poems,  though  insignificant  in  re 
spect  to  number  and  length,  and  not  yet 
collected  into  a  separate  volume,  or  rarely 
accredited  to  Raleigh,  deserve  the  distinct 
attention  of  the  lover  of  English  poetry,  and 
leave  such  an  impression  on  the  mind  that 
this  leaf  of  his  laurels,  for  the  time,  well 
nigh  overshadows  all  the  rest.7  In  these  few 
rhymes,  as  in  that  country  he  describes,  his 
life  naturally  culminates  and  his  secret  as 
pirations  appear.  They  are  in  some  respects 
more  trustworthy  testimonials  to  his  char 
acter  than  state  papers  or  tradition ;  for 
poetry  is  a  piece  of  very  private  history, 
which  unostentatiously  lets  us  into  the 
secret  of  a  man's  life,  and  is  to  the  reader 
what  the  eye  is  to  the  beholder,  the  charac 
teristic  feature  which  cannot  be  distorted 
or  made  to  deceive.  Poetry  is  always  im 
partial  and  unbiassed  evidence.  The  whole 
life  of  a  man  may  safely  be  referred  to  a  few 
deep  experiences.  When  he  only  sings  a 


more  musical  line  than  usual,  all  his  actions 
have  to  be  retried  by  a  newer  and  higher 
standard  than  before. 

The  pleasing  poem  entitled  A  'Descrip 
tion  of  the  Country's  Recreations*  also  printed 
among  the  poems  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  is 
well  known.  The  following,  which  bears 
evident  marks  of  his  pen,  we  will  quote, 
from  its  secure  and  continent  rhythm : 

FALSE   LOVE   AND    TRUE   LOVE 

As  you  came  from  the  holy  land 

Of  Walsingham, 
Met  you  not  with  my  true  love 

By  the  way  as  you  came  ? 

How  shall  I  know  your  true  love, 

That  have  met  many  one, 
As  I  went  to  the  holy  land, 

That  have  come,  that  have  gone. 

She  is  neither  white  nor  brown, 

But  as  the  heavens  fair ; 
There  is  none  hath  a  form  so  divine, 

In  the  earth  or  the  air. 

Such  a  one  did  I  meet,  good  Sir, 

Such  an  angelic  face ; 
Who  like  a  queen,  like  a  nymph  did  appear, 

By  her  gait,  by  her  grace : 

[70] 


She  hath  left  me  here  all  alone, 

All  alone  as  unknown, 
Who  sometimes  did  me  lead  with  herself, 

And  me  loved  as  her  own : 

What 's  the  cause  that  she  leaves  you  alone, 

And  a  new  way  doth  take : 
Who  loved  you  once  as  her  own 

And  her  joy  did  you  make  ? 

I  have  loved  her  all  my  youth, 

But  now,  old  as  you  see, 
Love  likes  not  the  falling  fruit 

From  the  withered  tree  : 

Know  that  Love  is  a  careless  child 

And  forgets  promise  past, 
He  is  blind,  he  is  deaf,  when  he  list, 

And  in  faith  never  fast : 

His  desire  is  a  dureless  content, 

And  a  trustless  joy  ; 
He  is  won  with  a  world  of  despair, 

And  is  lost  with  a  toy. 

Of  women-kind  such  indeed  is  the  love, 

Or  the  word  love  abused  ; 
Under  which,  many  childish  desires 

And  conceits  are  excused  : 

But  true  love  is  a  durable  fire 

In  the  mind  ever  burning ; 
Never  sick,  never  old,  never  dead, 

From  itself  never  turning. 

[71] 


The  following  will   be  new  to  many  of 
our  readers : 

THE   SHEPHERD'S  PRAISE   OF   HIS 
SACRED   DIANA 

Prais'd  be  Diana's  fair  and  harmless  light ; 

Prais'd  be  the  dews,  wherewith  she  moists  the  ground ; 
Prais'd  be  her  beams,  the  glory  of  the  night ; 

Prais'd  be  her  power,  by  which  all  powers  abound ! 

Prais'd  be  her  nymphs,  with  whom  she  decks  the  woods  ; 

Prais'd  be  her  knights,  in  whom  true  honor  lives ; 
Prais'd  be  that  force  by  which  she  moves  the  floods ! 

Let  that  Diana  shine,  which  all  these  gives ! 

In  heaven,  queen  she  is  among  the  spheres; 

She  mistress-like,  makes  all  things  to  be  pure ; 
Eternity  in  her  oft-change  she  bears ; 

She,  Beauty  is ;  by  her,  the  fair  endure. 

Time  wears  her  not ;  she  doth  his  chariot  guide ; 

Mortality  below  her  orb  is  plac'd ; 
By  her  the  virtues  of  the  stars  down  slide ; 

In  her  is  Virtue's  perfect  image  cast ! 

A  knowledge  pure  it  is  her  worth  to  know : 
With  Circes  let  them  dwell  that  think  not  so  ! 

Though  we  discover  in  his  verses  the  vices 
of  the  courtier,  and  they  are  not  equally  sus 
tained,  as  if  his  genius  were  warped  by  the 
frivolous  society  of  the  Court,  he  was  capa- 
[72] 


ble  of  rising  to  unusual  heights.  His  genius 
seems  to  have  been  fitted  for  short  flights 
of  unmatched  sweetness  and  vigor,  but  by 
no  means  for  the  sustained  loftiness  of  the 
epic  poet.  One  who  read  his  verses  would 
say  that  he  had  not  grown  to  be  the 
man  he  promised.  They  have  occasionally 
a  strength  of  character  and  heroic  tone 
rarely  expressed  or  appreciated;  and  powers 
and  excellences  so  peculiar,  as  to  be  almost 
unique  specimens  of  their  kind  in  the  lan 
guage.  Those  which  have  reference  to  his 
death  have  been  oftenest  quoted,  and  are 
the  best.  The  Soul's  Errand*  deserves  to  be 
remembered  till  her  mission  is  accomplished 
in  the  world. 

We  quote  the  following,  not  so  well 
known,  with  some  omissions,  from  the 
commencement  of — 

HIS   PILGRIMAGE 

Give  me  my  scallop-shell  of  quiet, 
My  staff  of  faith  to  walk  upon  ; 

My  scrip  of  joy,  immortal  diet ; 
My  bottle  of  salvation  ; 

My  gown  of  glory,  (hope's  true  gage) 

And  thus  I  '11  take  my  pilgrimage. 

[73] 


Blood  must  be  my  body's  balmer, 
No  other  balm  will  here  be  given, 

Whilst  my  soul,  like  quiet  palmer, 
Travels  to  the  land  of  heaven, 

Over  all  the  silver  mountains, 

Where  do  spring  those  nectar  fountains : 

And  I  there  will  sweetly  kiss 
The  happy  bowl  of  peaceful  bliss, 
Drinking  mine  eternal  fill 
Flowing  on  each  milky  hill. 
My  soul  will  be  adry  before, 
But  after,  it  will  thirst  no  more. 

In  that  happy,  blissful  day, 

More  peaceful  pilgrims  I  shall  see, 

That  have  cast  off  their  rags  of  clay, 
And  walk  apparell'd  fresh  like  me. 

But  he  wrote  his  poems,  after  all,  rather 
with  ships  and  fleets,  and  regiments  of  men 
and  horse.  At  his  bidding,  navies  took 
their  place  in  the  channel,  and  even  from 
prison  he  fitted  out  fleets  with  which  to 
realize  his  golden  dreams,  and  invited  his 
companions  to  fresh  adventures. 

Raleigh  might  well  be  studied  if  only  for 
the  excellence  of  his  style,  for  he  is  remark 
able  even  in  the  midst  of  so  many  masters. 
All  the  distinguished  writers  of  that  period 

[74] 


possess  a  greater  vigor  and  naturalness  than 
the  more  modern,  and  when  we  read  a  quo 
tation  from  one  of  them  in  the  midst  of  a 
modern  authority,  we  seem  to  have  come 
suddenly  upon  a  greener  ground  and  greater 
depth  and  strength  of  soil.  It  is  as  if  a 
green  bough  were  laid  across  the  page,  and 
we  are  refreshed  as  if  by  the  sight  of  fresh 
grass  in  midwinter  or  early  spring.  You 
have  constantly  the  warrant  of  life  and  ex 
perience  in  all  you  read.  The  little  that  is 
said  is  supplied  by  implication  of  the  much 
that  was  done.  The  sentences  are  verdu 
rous  and  blooming  as  evergreen  and  flowers, 
because  they  are  rooted  in  fact  and  expe 
rience;  but  our  false  and  florid  sentences 
have  only  the  tints  of  flowers  without  their 
sap  or  roots.  Where  shall  we  look  for 
standard  English  but  to  the  words  of  a  stand 
ard  man?  The  word  which  is  best  said 
came  very  near  not  being  spoken  at  all ;  for 
it  is  cousin  to  a  deed  which  would  have 
been  better  done.  It  must  have  taken  the 
place  of  a  deed  by  some  urgent  necessity, 
even  by  some  misfortune,  so  that  the  truest 
writer  will  be  some  captive  knight  after  all. 

[75] 


And  perhaps  the  fates  had  such  a  design, 
when,  having  stored  Raleigh  so  richly  with 
the  substance  of  life  and  experience,  they 
made  him  a  fast  prisoner,  and  compelled 
him  to  make  his  words  his  deeds,  and  trans 
fer  to  his  expression  the  emphasis  and  sin 
cerity  of  his  action. 

The  necessity  of  labor,  and  conversation 
with  many  men  and  things,  to  the  scholar,  is 
rarely  well  remembered.  Steady  labor  with 
the  hands,  which  engrosses  the  attention  also, 
is  the  best  method  of  removing  palaver  out 
of  one's  style  both  of  talking  and  writing.  If 
he  has  worked  hard  from  morning  till  night, 
though  he  may  have  grieved  that  he  could 
not  be  watching  the  train  of  his  thoughts 
during  that  time,  yet  the  few  hasty  lines 
which  at  evening  record  his  day's  experi 
ence  will  be  more  musical  and  true,  than  his 
freest  but  idle  fancy  could  have  furnished. 
He  will  not  lightly  dance  at  his  work  who 
has  wood  to  cut  and  cord  before  nightfall 
in  the  short  days  of  winter,  but  every  stroke 
will  be  husbanded  and  ring  soberly  through 
the  wood ; 10  and  so  will  the  stroke  of  that 
scholar's  pen,  when  at  evening  this  records 

[76] 


the  story  of  the  day,  ring  soberly  on  the  ear 
of  the  reader  long  after  the  echoes  of  his  axe 
have  died  away.  The  scholar  may  be  sure 
he  writes  the  tougher  truths  for  the  calluses 
on  his  palms.  They  give  firmness  to  the  sen 
tence.  We  are  often  astonished  at  the  force 
and  precision  of  style  to  which  hard-work 
ing  men  unpractised  in  writing  easily  attain, 
when  required  to  make  the  effort ;  as  if 
sincerity  and  plainness,  those  ornaments  of 
style,  were  better  taught  on  the  farm  or  in 
the  workshop  than  in  the  schools.  The  sen 
tences  written  by  such  rude  hands  are  ner 
vous  and  tough,  like  hardened  thongs,  the 
sinews  of  the  deer,  or  the  roots  of  the  pine. 
The  scholar  might  frequently  emulate  the 
propriety  and  emphasis  of  the  farmer's  call 
to  his  team,  and  confess,  if  that  were  written, 
it  would  surpass  his  labored  sentences. 

From  the  weak  and  flimsy  periods  of  the 
politician  and  literary  man  we  are  glad  to  turn 
even  to  the  description  of  work,  the  simple 
record  of  the  month's  labor  in  the  farmer's 
almanac,  to  restore  our  tone  and  spirits.  We 
like  that  a  sentence  should  read  as  if  its  author, 
had  he  held  a  plough  instead  of  a  pen,  could 

[77] 


have  drawn  a  furrow  deep  and  straight  to  the 
end.  The  scholar  requires  hard  labor  to  give 
an  impetus  to  his  thought ;  he  will  learn  to 
grasp  the  pen  firmly  so,  and  wield  it  grace 
fully  and  effectually  as  an  axe  or  sword.  When 
we  consider  the  weak  and  nerveless  periods  of 
some  literary  men,  who  perchance  in  feet  and 
inches  come  up  to  the  standard  of  their  race, 
and  are  not  deficient  in  girth  also,  we  are 
amazed  at  the  immense  sacrifice  of  thews 
and  sinews.  What !  these  proportions,  these 
bones,  and  this  their  work  !  Hands  which 
could  have  felled  an  ox  have  hewed  this  fragile 
matter  which  would  not  have  tasked  a  lady's 
fingers.  Can  this  be  a  stalwart  man's  work, 
who  has  a  marrow  in  his  back  and  a  tendon 
Achilles  in  his  heel?  They  who  set  up 
Stonehenge  did  somewhat,  if  they  only  laid 
out  their  strength  for  once,  and  stretched 
themselves. 

Yet  after  all  the  truly  efficient  laborer  will 
be  found  not  to  crowd  his  day  with  work, 
but  will  saunter  to  his  task,  surrounded  by  a 
wide  halo  of  ease  and  leisure,  and  then  do 
but  what  he  likes  best.  He  is  anxious  only 
about  the  kernels  of  time.  Though  the  hen 

[78] 


should  set  all  day  she  could  lay  only  one  egg, 
and  besides,  she  would  not  have  picked  up  the 
materials  for  another. 

A  perfectly  healthy  sentence  is  extremely 
rare.  But  for  the  most  part  we  miss  the  hue 
and  fragrance  of  the  thought.  As  if  we  could 
be  satisfied  with  the  dews  of  the  morning  or 
evening  without  their  colors,  or  the  heavens 
without  their  azure.  The  most  attractive 
sentences  are  perhaps  not  the  wisest,  but  the 
surest  and  soundest.  They  are  spoken  firmly 
and  conclusively,  as  if  the  author  had  a  right 
to  know  what  he  says  ;  and  if  not  wise,  they 
have  at  least  been  well  learned.  At  least  he 
does  not  stand  on  a  rolling  stone,  but  is  well 
assured  of  his  footing ;  and  if  you  dispute  their 
doctrine,  you  will  yet  allow  that  there  is  truth 
in  their  assurance.  Raleigh's  are  of  this  sort, 
spoken  with  entire  satisfaction  and  heartiness. 
They  are  not  so  much  philosophy  as  poetry. 
With  him  it  was  always  well  done  and  nobly 
said.  His  learning  was  in  his  hand,  and  he 
carried  it  by  him  and  used  it  as  adroitly  as 
his  sword.  Aubrey  says,  "  He  was  no  slug; 
without  doubt  had  a  wonderful  waking  spirit, 
and  great  judgment  to  guide  it."  He  wields 

[793 


his  pen  as  one  who  sits  at  ease  in  his  chair, 
and  has  a  healthy  and  able  body  to  back  his 
wits,  and  not  a  torpid  and  diseased  one  to  fet 
ter  them.  In  whichever  hand  is  the  pen  we 
are  sure  there  is  a  sword  in  the  other.  He 
sits  with  his  armor  on,  and  with  one  ear  open 
to  hear  if  the  trumpet  sound,  as  one  who  has 
stolen  a  little  leisure  from  the  duties  of  a  camp; 
and  we  are  confident  that  the  whole  man,  as 
real  and  palpable  as  an  Englishman  can  be, 
sat  down  to  the  writing  of  his  books,  and 
not  some  curious  brain  only.  Such  a  man's 
mere  daily  exercise  in  literature  might  well 
attract  us,  and  Cecil  has  said,  "  He  can  toil 
terribly." 

Raleigh  seems  to  have  been  too  genial  and 
loyal  a  soul  to  resist  the  temptations  of  a  court; 
but  if  to  his  genius  and  culture  could  have 
been  added  the  temperament  of  George  Fox 
or  Oliver  Cromwell,  perhaps  the  world  would 
have  had  reason  longer  to  remember  him. 
He  was,  however,  the  most  generous  nature 
that  could  be  drawn  into  the  precincts  of  a 
court,  and  carried  the  courtier's  life  almost  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  magnanimity  and  grace 
of  which  it  was  capable.  He  was  liberal  and 
[80] 


generous  as  a  prince,  that  is,  within  bounds ; 
brave,  chivalrous,  heroic,  as  a  knight  in  armor 
—  but  not  as  a  defenceless  man.  His  was 
not  the  heroism  of  a  Luther,  but  of  a  Bayard, 
and  had  more  of  grace  than  of  honest  truth 
in  it.  He  had  more  taste  than  appetite.  There 
may  be  something  petty  in  a  refined  taste,  — 
it  easily  degenerates  into  effeminacy.  It  does 
not  consider  the  broadest  use,  and  is  not  con 
tent  with  simple  good  and  bad,  but  is  often 
fastidious,  and  curious,  or  nice  only. 

His  faults,  as  we  have  hinted  before,  were 
those  of  a  courtier  and  a  soldier.  In  his  coun 
sels  and  aphorisms  we  see  not  unfrequently 
the  haste  and  rashness  of  the  soldier,  strangely 
mingled  with  the  wisdom  of  the  philosopher. 
Though  his  philosophy  was  not  wide  nor  pro 
found,  it  was  continually  giving  way  to  the 
generosity  of  his  nature,  and  he  was  not  hard 
to  be  won  to  the  right. 

What  he  touches  he  adorns  by  a  greater 
humanity  and  native  nobleness,  but  he  touches 
not  the  truest  nor  deepest.  He  does  not  in 
any  sense  unfold  the  new,  but  embellishes 
the  old,  and  with  all  his  promise  of  origi 
nality  he  never  was  quite  original,  or  steered 
[81] 


his  own  course.  He  was  of  so  fair  and  sus 
ceptible  a  nature,  rather  than  broad  or  deep, 
that  he  delayed  to  slake  his  thirst  at  the  near 
est  and  most  turbid  wells  of  truth  and  beauty; 
and  his  homage  to  the  least  fair  and  noble 
left  no  room  for  homage  to  the  All-fair. 
The  misfortune  and  incongruity  of  the  man 
appear  in  the  fact  that  he  was  at  once  the 
author  of  the  Maxims  of  State  and  The  Soul's 
Errand. 

When  we  reconsider  what  we  have  said  in 
the  foregoing  pages,  we  hesitate  to  apply  any 
of  their  eulogy  to  the  actual  and  historical 
Raleigh,  or  any  of  their  condemnation  to 
that  ideal  Raleigh  which  he  suggests.  For 
we  must  know  the  man  of  history  as  we 
know  our  contemporaries,  not  so  much  by 
his  deeds,  which  often  belie  his  real  charac 
ter,  as  by  the  expectation  he  begets  in  us  — 
and  there  is  a  bloom  and  halo  about  the  char 
acter  of  Raleigh  which  defies  a  close  and 
literal  scrutiny,  and  robs  us  of  our  critical 
acumen.  With  all  his  heroism,  he  was  not 
heroic  enough  ;  with  all  his  manliness,  he 
was  servile  and  dependent;  with  all  his  as 
pirations,  he  was  ambitious.  He  was  not 

[82] 


upright  nor  constant,  yet  we  would  have 
trusted  him  ;  he  could  flatter  and  cringe, 
yet  we  should  have  respected  him ;  and  he 
could  accept  a  bribe,  yet  we  should  confi 
dently  have  appealed  to  his  generosity. 

Such  a  life  is  useful  for  us  to  contemplate 
as  suggesting  that  a  man  is  not  to  be  meas 
ured  by  the  virtue  of  his  described  actions, 
or  the  wisdom  of  his  expressed  thoughts 
merely,  but  by  that  free  character  he  is,  and 
is  felt  to  be,  under  all  circumstances.  Even 
talent  is  respectable  only  when  it  indicates  a 
depth  of  character  unfathomed.  Surely  it 
is  better  that  our  wisdom  appear  in  the  con 
stant  success  of  our  spirits  than  in  our  busi 
ness,  or  the  maxims  which  fall  from  our  lips 
merely.  We  want  not  only  a  revelation,  but 
a  nature  behind  to  sustain  it.  Many  silent, 
as  well  as  famous,  lives  have  been  the  result 
of  no  mean  thought,  though  it  was  never 
adequately  expressed  nor  conceived ;  and  per 
haps  the  most  illiterate  and  unphilosophical 
mind  may  yet  be  accustomed  to  think  to  the 
extent  of  the  noblest  action.  We  all  know 
those  in  our  own  circle  who  do  injustice  to 
their  entire  character  in  their  conversation 

[83] 


and  in  writing,  but  who,  if  actually  set  over 
against  us,  would  not  fail  to  make  a  wiser 
impression  than  many  a  wise  thinker  and 
speaker. 

We  are  not  a  little  profited  by  any  life 
which  teaches  us  not  to  despair  of  the  race; 
and  such  effect  has  the  steady  and  cheer 
ful  bravery  of  Raleigh.  To  march  sturdily 
through  life,  patiently  and  resolutely  looking 
grim  defiance  at  one's  foes,  that  is  one  way; 
but  we  cannot  help  being  more  attracted  by 
that  kind  of  heroism  which  relaxes  its  brows 
in  the  presence  of  danger,  and  does  not  need 
to  maintain  itself  strictly,  but,  by  a  kind  of 
sympathy  with  the  universe,  generously  adorns 
the  scene  and  the  occasion,  and  loves  valor 
so  well  that  itself  would  be  the  defeated  party 
only  to  behold  it;  which  is  as  serene  and  as 
well  pleased  with  the  issue  as  the  heavens 
which  look  down  upon  the  field  of  battle. 
It  is  but  a  lower  height  of  heroism  when  the 
hero  wears  a  sour  face.  We  fear  that  much 
of  the  heroism  which  we  praise  nowadays 
is  dyspeptic.  When  we  consider  the  vast 
Xerxean  army  of  reformers  in  these  days, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  many  a  grim  soul  goes 


silent,  the  hero  of  some  small  intestine  war ; 
and  it  is  somewhat  to  begin  to  live  on  corn- 
bread  solely,  for  one  who  has  before  lived  on 
bolted  wheat;  —  but  of  this  sort  surely  are 
not  the  deeds  to  be  sung.  These  are  not  the 
Arthurs  that  inflame  the  imaginations  of  men. 
All  fair  action  is  the  product  of  enthusiasm, 
and  nature  herself  does  nothing  in  the  prose 
mood,  though  sometimes  grimly  with  poetic 
fury,  and  at  others  humorously.  There  is 
enthusiasm  in  the  sunrise  and  the  summer, 
and  we  imagine  that  the  shells  on  the  shore 
take  new  layers  from  year  to  year  with  such 
rapture  as  the  bard  writes  his  poems. 

We  would  fain  witness  a  heroism  which 
is  literally  illustrious,  whose  daily  life  is  the 
stuff  of  which  our  dreams  are  made  ;  so  that 
the  world  shall  regard  less  what  it  does  than 
how  it  does  it ;  and  its  actions  unsettle  the 
common  standards,  and  have  a  right  to  be 
done,  however  wrong  they  may  be  to  the 
moralist. 

Mere  gross  health  and  cheerfulness  are 
no  slight  attraction,  and  some  biographies 
have  this  charm  mainly.  For  the  most  part 
the  best  man's  spirit  makes  a  fearful  sprite  to 

[85] 


haunt  his  grave,  and  it  adds  not  a  little  there 
fore  to  the  credit  of  Little  John,  the  cele 
brated  follower  of  Robin  Hood,  reflecting 
favorably  on  the  character  of  his  life,  that 
his  grave  was  "  long  celebrous  for  the  yield 
ing  of  excellent  whetstones." 

A  great  cheerfulness  indeed  have  all  great 
wits  and  heroes  possessed,  almost  a  profane 
levity  to  such  as  understood  them  not,  but 
their  religion  had  the  broader  basis  of  health 
and  permanence.  For  the  hero,  too,  has  his 
religion,  though  it  is  the  very  opposite  to 
that  of  the  ascetic.  It  demands  not  a  nar 
rower  cell  but  a  wider  world.  He  is  per 
haps  the  very  best  man  of  the  world ;  the 
poet  active,  the  saint  wilful ;  not  the  most 
godlike,  but  the  most  manlike.  There  have 
been  souls  of  a  heroic  stamp  for  whom  this 
world  seemed  expressly  made  ;  as  if  this  fair 
creation  had  at  last  succeeded,  for  it  seems 
to  be  thrown  away  on  the  saint.  Such  seem 
to  be  an  essential  part  of  their  age  if  we  con 
sider  them  in  time,  and  of  the  scenery  if  we 
consider  them  in  Nature.  They  lie  out  be 
fore  us  ill-defined  and  uncertain,  like  some 
scraggy  hillside  or  pasture,  which  varies  from 
[86] 


day  to  day  and  from  hour  to  hour,  with  the 
revolutions  of  Nature,  so  that  the  eye  of  the 
forester  never  rests  twice  upon  the  same  scene ; 
one  knows  not  what  may  occur,  —  he  may 
hear  a  fox  bark  or  a  partridge  drum.  They 
are  planted  deep  in  Nature  and  have  more 
root  than  others.  They  are  earth-born 
(yrjytveis),  as  was  said  of  the  Titans.  They 
are  brothers  of  the  sun  and  moon,  they  be 
long,  so  to  speak,  to  the  natural  family  of 
man.  Their  breath  is  a  kind  of  wind,  their 
step  like  that  of  a  quadruped,  their  moods 
the  seasons,  and  they  are  as  serene  as  Nature. 
Their  eyes  are  deep-set  like  moles  or  glow 
worms,  they  move  free  and  unconstrained 
through  Nature  as  her  guests,  their  motions 
easy  and  natural  as  if  their  course  were  al 
ready  determined  for  them  ;  —  as  of  rivers 
flowing  through  valleys,  not  as  somewhat 
finding  a  place  in  Nature,  but  for  whom  a 
place  is  already  found.  We  love  to  hear 
them  speak  though  we  do  not  hear  what 
they  say.  The  very  air  seems  forward  to 
modulate  itself  into  speech  for  them,  and 
their  words  are  of  its  own  substance,  and  fall 
naturally  on  the  ear,  like  the  rustling  of  leaves 


and  the  crackling  of  the  fire.  They  have 
the  heavens  for  their  abettors,  for  they  never 
stood  from  under  them,  and  they  look  at  the 
stars  with  an  answering  ray.  The  distinc 
tions  of  better  and  best,  sense  and  nonsense, 
seem  trivial  and  petty,  when  such  great 
healthy  indifferences  come  along.  We  lay 
aside  the  trick  of  thinking  well  to  attend  to 
their  thoughtless  and  happy  natures,  and  are 
inclined  to  show  a  divine  politeness  and 
heavenly  good-breeding,  for  they  compel  it. 
They  are  great  natures.  It  takes  a  good  deal 
to  support  them.  Theirs  is  no  thin  diet. 
The  very  air  they  breathe  seems  rich,  and, 
as  it  were,  perfumed. 

They  are  so  remarkable  as  to  be  least  re 
marked  at  first,  since  they  are  most  in  har 
mony  with  the  time  and  place,  and  if  we 
wonder  at  all  it  will  be  at  ourselves  and  not 
at  them.  Mountains  do  not  rise  perpen 
dicularly,  but  the  lower  eminences  hide  the 
higher,  and  we  at  last  reach  their  top  by  a 
gentle  acclivity.  We  must  abide  a  long 
time  in  their  midst  and  at  their  base,  as  we 
spend  many  days  at  the  Notch  of  the  White 
Mountains  in  order  to  be  impressed  by  the 
[88] 


scenery.  Let  us  not  think  that  Alexander 
will  conquer  Asia  the  first  time  we  are  in 
troduced  to  him,  though  smaller  men  may 
be  in  haste  to  re-enact  their  exploits  then. 

"  Would  you  have 

Such  an  Herculean  actor  in  the  scene, 
And  not  his  hydra  ?  " 

u  They  must  sweat  no  less 
To  fit  their  properties  than  to  express  their  parts." 

The  presence  of  heroic  souls  enhances  the 
beauty  and  ampleness  of  Nature  herself. 
Where  they  walk,  as  Vergil  says  of  the  abodes 
of  the  blessed,  — 

Largtor  hie  campos  aether  et  lumlne  vestit 
Purpureo:  solemque  suum^  sua  sidera  norunt. 

Here  a  more  copious  air  invests  the  fields,  and  clothes 
with  purple  light ;  and  they  know  their  own  sun  and 
their  own  stars.11 

But,  alas  !  What  is  Truth  ?  That  which 
we  know  not.  What  is  Beauty  ?  That 
which  we  see  not.  What  is  Heroism  ?  That 
which  we  are  not.  It  is  in  vain  to  hang  out 
flags  on  a  day  of  rejoicing,  —  fresh  bunting, 
bright  and  whole  ;  better  the  soiled  and  torn 
remnant  which  has  been  borne  in  the  wars. 

We  have  considered  a  fair  specimen  of  an 
Englishman  in  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  it 


behoves  us  to  be  fairer  specimens  of  Ameri 
can  men  in  the  nineteenth.  The  gods  have 
given  man  no  constant  gift,  but  the  power 
and  liberty  to  act  greatly.  How  many  wait 
for  health  and  warm  weather  to  be  heroic 
and  noble  !  We  are  apt  to  think  there  is  a 
kind  of  virtue  which  need  not  be  heroic  and 
brave,  —  but  in  fact  virtue  is  the  deed  of  the 
bravest ;  and  only  the  hardy  souls  venture 
upon  it,  for  it  deals  in  what  we  have  no  ex 
perience,  and  alone  does  the  rude  pioneer 
work  of  the  world.  In  winter  is  its  cam 
paign,  and  it  never  goes  into  quarters.  "  Sit 
not  down,"  said  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "in  the 
popular  seats  and  common  level  of  virtues, 
but  endeavor  to  make  them  heroical.  Offer 
not  only  peace-offerings,  but  holocausts,  unto 
God." 

In  our  lonely  chambers  at  night  we  are 
thrilled  by  some  far-off  serenade  within  the 
mind,  and  seem  to  hear  the  clarion  sound 
and  clang  of  corselet  and  buckler  from  many 
a  silent  hamlet  of  the  soul,  though  actu 
ally  it  may  be  but  the  rattling  of  some  farm 
er's  waggon  rolling  to  market  against  the 


morrow.12 


[90] 


NOTES 

From  the  first  tentative  draft  of  the  MS.  of 
Thoreau's  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 

I.  Another  and  kindred  spirit  contemporary 
with  Raleigh,  who  survives  yet  more  exclusively 
in  his  reputation,  rather  than  in  his  works,  and 
has  been  the  subject  perhaps  of  even  more  and 
more  indiscriminate  praise,  is  Sir  Philip  Sidney ; 
a  man  who  was  no  less  a  presence  to  his  contem 
poraries,  though  we  now  look  in  vain  in  his  works 
for  satisfactory  traces  of  his  greatness.  Who, 
dying  at  the  age  of  thirty- two,  having  left  no 
great  work  behind  him,  or  the  fame  of  a  single 
illustrious  exploit,  has  yet  left  the  rumor  of  a 
character  for  heroic  impulses  and  gentle  behavior 
which  bids  fair  to  survive  the  longer  lives  and 
more  illustrious  deeds  of  many  a  worthy  else, 
the  splendor  of  whose  reputation  seems  to  have 
blinded  his  critics  to  the  faults  of  his  writings. 
So  that  we  find  his  Arcadia  spoken  of  with  vague 
and  dubious  praise  as  "  a  book  most  famous  for 
rich  conceits  and  splendor  of  courtly  expressions." 
With  regard  to  whom  also  this  reason  is  assigned 
why  no  monument  should  be  erected  to  him, 


that  "  he  is  his  own  monument  whose  memory  is 
eternized  in  his  writings,  and  who  was  born  into 
the  world  to  show  unto  our  age  a  sample  of 
ancient  virtue,"  and  of  whom  another  says,  "It 
was  he  whom  Queen  Elizabeth  called  her  Philip ; 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  his  master  ;  and  whose 
friendship  my  Lord  Brook  was  so  proud  of,  that 
he  would  have  no  other  epitaph  on  his  grave  than 

this: 

'  Here  lieth  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Friend.' " 

From  Raleighy  by  Edmund  Gosse 

2.  Arabella  Stuart  (born  about  1575)  was  James 
I's  first  cousin,  the  daughter  of  Charles  Stuart, 
fifth  Earl  of  Lennox,  Lord  Darnley's  elder  brother. 
About  1588  she  had  come  up  to  London  to  be 
presented  to  Elizabeth,  and  on  that  occasion  had 
amused  Raleigh  with  her  gay  accomplishments. 
The  legal  quibble  on  which  her  claim  was  founded 
was  the  fact  that  she  was  born  in  England,  whereas 
James  as  a  Scotchman  was  supposed  to  be  ex 
cluded.     Arabella  was  no  pretender  ;  her  descent 
from  Margaret,  the  sister  of  Henry  VIII,  was  com 
plete,  and  if  James  had  died  childless,  and  she  had 
survived  him,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  her  claim 
could  have  been  avoided  in  favor  of  the  Suffolk 
line. 

3.  Dr.     Robert    Tounson,     then     Dean    of 
Westminster,  who  became  Bishop  of  Salisbury. 
[GossE.] 


4.  There  is  a  pleasant  legend  that  Raleigh  and 
one  of  his  half-brothers  were  riding  up  to  town 
from  Plymouth,  when  Raleigh's  horse  stumbled 
and  threw  him  within  the  precincts  of  a  beautiful 
Dorsetshire  estate,  then  in  possession  of  the  Dean 
and  Chapter  of  Salisbury,  and  that  Raleigh,  choos 
ing  to  consider  that  he  had  thus  taken  seisin  of 
the  soil,  asked  the  Queen  for  Sherborne  l  Castle 
when  he  arrived  at  Court.     It  may  have  been  on 
this  occasion  that  Elizabeth  asked  him  when  he 
would  cease   to   be   a   beggar,   and   received   the 
reply,    "  When    your    Majesty    ceases    to    be   a 
benefactor."     [GossE.] 

5.  This  passage  about  Alexander  and  Epami- 
nondas  is  preceded  in  Ralegh,  as  copied  by  Thoreau 
in  the  scrap-book,  by  some  general  remarks  on  that 
remarkable  quality  in  a  few  men  which  Ralegh 
seems  to  have  felt  in  himself,  which,  as  he  wrote, 
"  Guided  handfuls  of  men  against  multitudes  of 
equal  bodily  strength,  contrived  victories  beyond 
all  hope  and  discourse  of  reason,  converted  the 
fearful  passions  of  his  own  followers  into  magna 
nimity,  and  the  valor  of  his  enemies  into  coward 
ice.     Such  spirits  have  been  stirred  up  in  sundry 
ages  of  the  world,  and  in  divers  parts  thereof,  to 
erect  and  cast  down  again,  to  establish  and  to  de 
stroy,  and  to  bring  all  things,  persons  and  states 
to  the  same  certain  ends  which  the  infinite  Spirit 

1  Sherborne  came  into  Ralegh's  possession  in  1592.  —  ED. 

[93] 


of  the  Universal,  piercing,  moving  and  governing 
all  things,  hath  ordained."  It  was  passages  like 
this,  in  his  speech  and  writings,  that  laid  Ralegh 
open  to  the  charge  of  atheism,  which  seems  to  have 
been  first  brought  against  him  at  the  same  time 
that  his  friend  the  poet  Marlowe  was  similarly 
accused,  in  1592-3,  and  may  have  been  one  of 
the  reasons  why  Queen  Elizabeth  withdrew  her 
favor  from  Ralegh  about  that  time.  The  definite 
accusations  against  Marlowe,  which  were  sent  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  in  June,  1592,  apparently,  were 
from  the  mouth  of  one  Richard  Baine,  who  was 
hanged  for  felony  two  years  after,  and  contained 
these  words,  perhaps  pointing  towards  Ralegh  : 
"  That  one  Richard  Cholmelei  hath  confessed  that 
he  was  persuaded  by  Marlowe's  reason  to  become 
an  atheist.  These  things  shall  by  good  and  honest 
men  be  proved  to  be  his  opinions  and  common 
speeches,  and  that  this  Marlowe  doth  not  only 
hold  them  himself,  but  almost  in  every  company 
he  cometh,  persuadeth  men  to  atheism,  —  willing 
them  not  to  be  afraid  of  bugbears  and  hobgoblins, 
and  utterly  scorning  both  God  and  his  ministers. 
.  .  .  He  saith,  moreover,  that  he  hath  quoted  a 
number  of  contrarieties  out  of  the  Scriptures,  which 
he  hath  given  to  some  great  men,  who  in  convenient 
time  shall  be  named."  That  Ralegh  was  one  of 
these  "  great  men  "  is  highly  probable  ;  at  any  rate, 
the  accusation  of  atheism  was  then  secretly  brought 
against  him,  and  was  likely  to  have  weighed  with 

[94] 


Elizabeth.  Ralegh,  with  Sidney,  is  believed  to 
have. been  one  of  the  English  circle  who  associated 
with  Giordano  Bruno,  during  his  short  residence 
in  England,  a  few  years  before  Sidney's  death  ;  and 
Bruno  also  made  himself  liable  to  a  like  charge 
of  atheism.  [F.  B.  SANBORN.] 

6.  These  lines  appear  in  The  Fourth  Day  of 
the  First  Week  of  Sylvester's  version  of  Guillaume 
Salluste  du  Bartas's  Divine  Weeks  and  Works, 
pp.  102-3  of  the  edition  of  1613.  Sylvester 
adds,  at  the  end  of  those  quoted,  continuing  the 
sentence,  — 

But  shine  in  vain,  and  have  no  charge  precise 
But  to  be  walking  in  Heaven's  galleries, 
And  through  that  Palace  up  and  down  to  clamber 
As  Golden  Gulls  about  a  Prince's  Chamber. 

This  conceit  of  the  influence  of  the  stars  was  gen 
eral  in  Ralegh's  day.  His  friend  Sidney,  in  his 
Sonnet  XXVI,  has  the  same  thought  as  Ralegh, 
but  turns  it  to  a  compliment  to  Stella,  — 

Though  dusty  wits  dare  scorn  Astrology, 

And  (fools)  can  think  those  lamps  of  purest  light 
Whose  numbers,  way,  greatness,  eternity, 

Promising  wonders,  wonder  do  invite, 
To  have  for  no  cause  birthright  in  the  sky, 

But  for  to  spangle  the  black  weeds  of  Night ; 
Or  for  some  brawl,  which  in  that  chamber  high 

They  should  still  dance,  to  please  a  gazer's  sight. 

[95] 


For  me,  I  do  Nature  unidle  know, 

And  know  great  causes  great  effects  procure, 

And  know,  those  bodies  high  rule  o'er  the  low ; 

And  if  these  rules  did  fail,  proof  makes  me  sure,  — 

Who  oft  forejudge  my  after-following  race 

By  only  those  two  stars  in  Stella's  face. 

In  what  follows,  concerning  the  powers  and  bod 
ily  nature  of  man,  Ralegh  uses  what  was  a  com 
monplace  of  his  period,  but  expresses  this  quaint 
conceit  with  more  grace  than  was  customary,  and 
closes  it  with  that  touch  of  regret  so  familiar  in 
him,  though  in  expression  he  may  borrow  from 
the  Sicilian  lament  of  Moschus  for  Bion.  And 
so  poetical  is  his  prose  at  times,  that  Thoreau 
very  properly  calls  the  passage  on  the  decay  of 
oracles  a  "  poem/'  [F.  B.  SAN  BORN.] 

From  Thoreau's  second  draft  of  the  MS. 

7.  Aubrey  says,  cc  I  well  remember  his  study 
[at  Durham-house]  which  was  on  a  little  turret 
that  looked  into  and  over  the  Thames,  and  had 
the  prospect,  which  is  as  pleasant,  perhaps,  as 
any  in  the  world,  and  which  not  only  refreshes 
the"eie-sight,  but  cheers  the  spirits,  and  (to  speake 
my  mind)  I  believe  enlarges  an  ingeniose  man's 
thoughts."  Perhaps  it  was  here  that  he  composed 
some  of  his  poems. 


[96] 


3.  A  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  COUNTRY'S 

RECREATIONS 

Quivering  fears,  heart-tearing  cares, 
Anxious  sighs,  untimely  tears, 

Fly,  fly  to  courts ; 

Fly  to  fond  worldlings'  sports, 
Where  strain'd  sardonic  smiles  are  glosing  still, 
And  grief  is  forc'd  to  laugh  against  her  will ; 

Where  mirth's  but  mummery ; 

And  sorrows  only  real  be ! 

Fly  from  our  country  pastimes  !  fly, 
Sad  troop  of  human  misery  ; 

Come,  serene  looks, 

Clear  as  the  crystal  brooks, 
Or  the  pure  azur'd  heaven,  that  smiles  to  see 
The  rich  attendance  of  our  poverty. 

Peace,  and  a  secure  mind, 

Which  all  men  seek,  we  only  find. 

Abused  mortals  !  did  you  know 

Where  joy,  heart's-ease,  and  comforts  grow, 

You'd  scorn  proud  towers, 

And  seek  them  in  these  bowers, 

Where  winds  sometimes  our  woods  perhaps  may  shake, 
But  blustering  care  could  never  tempest  make ; 

Nor  murmurs  e'er  come  nigh  us, 

Saving  of  fountains  that  glide  by  us. 

Here's  no  fantastic  masque,  nor  dance, 
But  of  our  kids,  that  frisk  and  prance : 

Nor  wars  are  seen, 

Unless  upon  the  green 

[97] 


Two  harmless  lambs  are  butting  one  the  other, 
Which  done,  both  bleating  run,  each  to  his  mother ; 

And  wounds  are  never  found, 

Save  what  the  plough-share  gives  the  ground. 

Here  are  no  false  entrapping  baits, 
To  hasten  too  too  hasty  fates ; 

Unless  it  be 

The  fond  credulity 

Of  silly  fish,  which,  worldling-like,  still  look 
Upon  the  bait,  but  never  on  the  hook : 

Nor  envy,  unless  among 

The  birds,  for  prize  of  their  sweet  song. 

Go !  let  the  diving  negro  seek 

For  gems  hid  in  some  forlorn  creek ; 

We  all  pearls  scorn, 

Save  what  the  dewy  morn 
Congeals  upon  each  little  spire  of  grass, 
Which  careless  shepherds  beat  down  as  they  pass ; 

And  gold  ne'er  here  appears, 

Save  what  the  yellow  Ceres  bears. 

Blest,  silent  groves !  O  may  ye  be 
For  ever  mirth's  best  nursery  ! 

May  pure  contents 

For  ever  pitch  their  tents 

Upon  these  downs,  these  meads,  these  rocks,  these  moun 
tains, 
And  peace  still  slumber  by  these  purling  fountains  ! 

Which  we  may  every  year 

Find  when  we  come  a  fishing  here ! 

[98] 


THE  SOUL'S  ERR  AND  i 

Go,  soul,  the  body's  guest, 

Upon  a  thankless  errand  ; 
Fear  not  to  touch  the  best 

The  truth  shall  be  thy  warrant 
Go,  since  I  needs  must  die, 
And  give  them  all  the  lie. 

Go,  tell  the  court  it  glows, 

And  shines  like  painted  wood ; 
Go,  tell  the  church  it  shews 

What's  good,  but  does  no  good. 
If  court  and  church  reply, 
Give  court  and  church  the  lie. 

Tell  potentates,  they  live 

Acting,  but  O  their  actions  ! 
Not  lov'd,  unless  they  give; 

Nor  strong,  but  by  their  factions. 
If  potentates  reply, 
Give  potentates  the  lie. 


1  This  poem  (also  called  The  Lie  and  The  Farewell)  has 
been  given  as  written  by  Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  the  night  before 
bis  execution ,  which  was  October  29,  1618  ;  but  it  had  already 
appeared  in  Davison's  Rhapsody,  in  1608;  and  it  is  also  to  be 
found  in  a  MS.  collection  of  Poems  in  the  British  Museum, 
which  has  the  date  of  1596.  With  the  title,  The  Lie,  it  is 
printed  by  Davison  with  many  variations,  e.  g., — 

Say  to  the  court  it  glows, 

And  shines  like  rotten  wood,  &c. ,  &c.  —  ED. 

[99] 


Tell  men  of  high  condition, 
That  rule  affairs  of  state, 
Their  purpose  is  ambition ; 
Their  practice  only  hate. 
And  if  they  do  reply, 
Then  give  them  all  the  lie. 

Tell  those  that  brave  it  most, 

They  beg  for  more  by  spending ; 
Who  in  their  greatest  cost 

Seek  nothing  but  commending. 
And  if  they  make  reply, 
Spare  not  to  give  the  lie. 

Tell  zeal  it  lacks  devotion  ; 

Tell  love  it  is  but  lust ; 
Tell  time  it  is  but  motion ; 
Tell  flesh  it  is  but  dust : 

And  wish  them  not  reply, 
For  thou  must  give  the  lie. 

Tell  age  it  daily  wasteth ; 

Tell  honor  how  it  alters ; 
Tell  beauty  that  it  blasteth ; 
Tell  favor  that  she  falters : 
And  as  they  do  reply, 
Give  every  one  the  lie. 

Tell  wit  how  much  it  wrangles 

In  fickle  points  of  niceness ; 
Tell  wisdom  she  entangles 
Herself  in  over-wiseness  : 
And  if  they  do  reply, 
Then  give  them  both  the  lie. 

[  100  ] 


Tell  physic  of  her  boldness ; 

Tell  skill  it  is  pretension;  A 
Tell  charity  of  coldness ; 
Tell  law  it  is  contention : 
And  if  they  yield  reply, 
Then  give  them  still  the  lie. 

Tell  fortune  of  her  blindness ; 

Tell  nature  of  decay  ; 
Tell  friendship  of  unkindness  ; 
Tell  justice  of  delay : 

And  if  they  do  reply, 
Then  give  them  all  the  lie. 

Tell  arts  they  have  no  soundness, 

But  vary  by  esteeming ; 
Tell  schools  they  lack  profoundness, 
And  stand  too  much  on  seeming. 
If  arts  and  schools  reply, 
Give  arts  and  schools  the  lie. 

Tell  faith  it's  fled  the  city  ; 

Tell  how  the  country  erreth ; 
Tell  manhood,  shakes  off  pity ; 
Tell  virtue,  least  preferreth. 
And  if  they  do  reply, 
Spare  not  to  give  the  lie. 

So,  when  thou  hast,  as  I 

Commanded  thee,  done  blabbing; 
Although  to  give  the  lie 

Deserves  no  less  than  stabbing 
Yet  stab  at  thee  who  will, 
No  stab  the  soul  can  kill. 
[10!] 


10.  The  allusion  here  is  doubtless  to  Thoreau's 
intimate  companion  of  forty  years  from  early  in 
1843,  Ellery  Channing,  who  in  the  winter  of 
1843-44  was  chopping  cordwood  on  the  road 
from  Concord  to  Lincoln,  near  where  Thoreau 
and  his  friend,  Stearns  Wheeler  of  Lincoln,  had 
a  cabin  in  the  woods  for  study  and  amusement. 
Channing's  experiences  that  winter  gave  occa 
sion  to  the  making  of  a  poem,  The  Woodman^ 
which  gave  title  to  his  third  book  of  verses,  pub 
lished  in  1849  (the  year  when  The  Week  came 
out)  and  was  reprinted  in  1902,  with  omissions 
and  additions,  from  the  Channing  MSS.  in  Poems 
of  Sixty-Five  Tears.  Thoreau  himself  had  some 
times  been  a  wood-cutter ;  indeed,  his  range  of 
manual  employments,  as  he  wrote  his  Harvard 
Class  Secretary  in  1847,  made  him  "  a  Surveyor, 
a  Gardener,  a  Farmer,  a  Painter  (I  mean  a  House- 
painter),  a  Carpenter,  a  Mason,  a  Day-laborer,  a 
Pencil-maker,  a  etc." 

In  a  letter  to  Horace  Greeley,  of  May,  1848, 
Thoreau  said  that  he  had  supported  himself  by 
manual  labor  at  a  dollar  a  day  for  the  past  five 
years,  and  yet  had  seen  more  leisure  than  most 
scholars  found.  He  added,  "There  is  no  rea 
son  why  the  scholar,  who  professes  to  be  a 
little  wiser  than  the  mass  of  men,  should  not 
do  his  work  in  the  dirt  occasionally,  and  by 
means  of  his  superior  wisdom  make  much  less 
suffice  for  him.  A  wise  man  will  not  be  un- 

[102] 


fortunate,  —  how  then  would  you  know  but  he 
was  a  fool  ?  " 

His  friend  Emerson,  however,  did  not  find 
that  the  laborer's  strokes  that  he  used  himself 
in  his  "pleached  garden"  helped  him  to  better 
strokes  of  the  pen ;  and  so  employed  Alcott,  Chan- 
ning,  and  Thoreau  now  and  then  to  make  the 
laborer's  strokes  for  him,  while  he  meditated  in 
his  study  or  walked  the  woods  and  fields.  [F.  B. 
SANBORN.] 

II.  This  trait  of  cheerfulness  was  Thoreau's 
own,  and  should  be  named  in  all  mention  of  him, 
especially  in  the  long  endurance  of  his  last  illness. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  son  and  namesake  of 
Horace  Mann  was  the  companion  of  Thoreau  on 
that  long  journey  to  the  unsettled  parts  of  Min 
nesota  in  1 86 1,  from  which  he  returned  only  to 
linger  and  die  in  May,  1862.  Mrs.  Mann,  the 
mother  of  young  Horace  (who  himself  did  not 
long  survive),  thus  wrote  in  May  of  that  year  to 
her  sister,  Mrs.  Hawthorne :  "  I  was  made  very 
happy  to-day  by  seeing  Miss  Thoreau,  whose 
brother  died  such  a  happy,  peaceful  death, — leav 
ing  them  all  so  fully  possessed  of  his  faith  in 
the  Immortal  Life  that  they  seem  almost  to  have 
entered  it  with  him.  They  said  [meaning  Mrs. 
Thoreau,  her  sister,  Louisa  Dunbar,  and  his  other 
aunts,  as  well  as  Sophia,  his  sister],  they  never 
could  be  sad  in  his  presence  for  a  moment;  he 
had  been  the  happiest  person  they  had  ever  known, 

[103] 


all  through  his  life,  and  was  just  as  happy  in  the 
presence  of  death.  This  is  the  more  remarkable, 
as  he  was  still  in  the  prime  of  life,  with  a  vivid 
sense  of  its  enjoyments.  But  he  was  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  Nature  than  most  men.  Sophia  said 
to-day  that  he  once  told  her  when  looking  at  a 
pressed  flower  that  he  had  walked  10,000  miles 
to  verify  the  day  on  which  that  flower  bloomed. 
It  grew  four  miles  from  his  home,  and  he  walked 
there  every  day  in  the  season  of  it  for  many  years. 
.  .  .  He  seemed  to  walk  straight  into  Heaven. 
It  is  animating  and  inspiring  to  see  a  great  or  a 
good  man  take  that  last  step  with  his  thoughts 
about  him,  and  intent  upon  the  two  worlds  whose 
connection  he  sees  with  the  clairvoyance  that  death 
gives.  I  know  it  well,  and  I  could  fully  sympa 
thize  in  her  sense  of  her  brother's  continued  pres 
ence.  Death  is  not  the  word  to  use  for  such  a 
transit,  —  but  more  life,  —  for  which  we  as  yet 
have  no  word." 

In  a  letter  to  Thoreau's  good  friend  at  New 
Bedford,  Daniel  Ricketson  (printed  in  Anna  and 
Walton  Ricketson's  Memoir  of  their  father, 
p.  142),  Sophia,  under  date  of  May  20,  1862,  said : 
"  During  Henry's  long  illness  I  never  heard 
a  murmur  escape  him,  or  the  slightest  wish  ex 
pressed  to  remain  with  us ;  his  perfect  content 
ment  was  truly  wonderful.  None  of  his  friends 
seemed  to  realize  how  very  ill  he  was,  so  full 
of  life  and  good  cheer  did  he  seem.  One  friend, 
[  104] 


as  if  by  way  of  consolation,  said  to  him,  c  Well, 
Mr.  Thoreau,  we  must  all  go/  Henry  re 
plied,  c  When  I  was  a  very  little  boy  I  learned 
that  I  must  die,  and  I  set  that  down,  —  so 
of  course  I  am  not  disappointed  now.  Death 
is  as  near  to  you  as  it  is  to  me/  .  .  .  The  de 
votion  of  his  friends  was  most  rare  and  touch 
ing.  He  would  sometimes  say  c  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  stay  in  this  world  after  so  much 
had  been  done  for  me ;  I  could  never  repay 
my  friends/  ' 

In  this  last  sally  of  his  wit,  which  was  as  marked 
in  its  expression  during  his  illness  as  in  his  vig 
orous  days  of  rambling  and  writing,  we  see  not 
alone  the  humor,  but  likewise  that  strict  sense 
of  obligation  which  he  had  from  boyhood.  He 
wished  to  receive  nothing  gratis  except  from  Na 
ture  herself;  his  debts,  unlike  those  of  many 
poets,  must  always  be  punctually  paid.  [F.  B. 
SANBORN.] 

12.  In  this  description  of  Virtue,  Thoreau  made 
some  use  of  the  MS.  afterward  printed  in  Mr. 
Sanborn's  edition,  in  which  he  quoted  the  same 
passage  from  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  but  without 
giving  the  author's  name.  A  portion  of  the  illus 
tration  of  the  clarion  and  corselet  is  also  found 
in  The  Service.  That  this  whole  Ralegh  sketch 
was  given  as  a  winter  lecture  in  the  Concord  Ly 
ceum  is  rendered  probable  by  his  speaking  here 
of  "  waiting  for  warm  weather,"  and  of  a  winter 


campaign.  If  the  records  of  that  Lyceum  were 
complete  we  might  find  the  very  evening  on  which 
he  read  it  there,  —  not  later,  I  am  sure,  than  1845. 
[F.  B.  SANBORN.] 


[106] 


THIS   BOOK  IS  DUE  ON   THE   LAST  DATE 
STAMPED   BELOW 

RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-35m-7,'62(D296s4)458 


273352 


Thoreau,   H.D. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 


Call  Number: 

DA86.22 

R2 

Tii6 


273852 


